Ridley Scott on Dune

It was just a matter now of getting into it we tried to get Ridley from the outset but he was at that point planing to do Dune As I was mixing Alien Michael Deeley had come to see me at EMI and I'd known Deeley from his days with EMI and he said I've got this script called Blade Runner and I said I don't really want to do another science-fiction, I've just finished one but I'll read it, I read the script, which was Hampton Fancher, it was called Dangers Days and I turned it down. Ridley Scott was going to be the original director on Dune, and Dino de Laurentiis hired him and sets were being built, they were going to shoot it and it was going to be based on the novel and it was going to be this large-scale science-fiction film I was attracted to Dune because it was beyond what I'd done on Alien which was kinda hard core kinda horror film and Dune would be a step very strongly, very very strongly, in the direction of Star Wars At this point something rather sad happened which is that Ridley's older brother died, died rather young obviously and Ridley was in some depression, he really had to get to work, wanted to do something when he's working he's working