8.18.2011

Ridley Scott ready to revisit Blade Runner!


Here's the article via Mike Fleming over at Deadline

Exclusive:
After revisiting his classic Alien with the upcoming 3D Fox film Prometheus, Ridley Scott is committing to direct and produce a film that advances his other seminal and groundbreaking science fiction film. Scott has signed on to direct and produce a new installment of Blade Runner
I’m not getting a clear sense at this point whether Scott intends to do a sequel or a prequel to the 1982 film that was loosely based on the Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Also unclear is whether they start fresh or reach out to Harrison Ford. The original took place in dystopian Los Angeles in 2019, in which organic superhuman robots called replicants escaped and are hiding somewhere on earth.  Ford played Richard Deckard, a burnt out blade runner assigned to hunt them down. His tired life gets altered when he himself falls for one of the replicants and struggles to keep her from being destroyed.
The film was not a blockbuster when first released--it grossed $32 million in its original run--but the film has gained esteem over time. From the bleak but breathtaking  visuals to the complex storyline and themes of mortality, Blade Runner became a classic. There has periodically been talks of doing a sequel but those never really went anywhere.  After injecting state of the art 3D in reviving Alien, imagine what Scott can do with Blade Runner? Now, the filmmaker is ready to engage. Alcon has its output deal with Warner Bros, which remastered and released a 25th anniversary version on DVD and Blu-Ray in 2007. Warner Bros made the original film.
This is just the first step and the project will have to be written and it will likely evolve during that process. That's what happened on Alien, which began as a prequel to his 1979 classic. That changed when Lost's Damon Lindelof came in with a different take on the subject matter that imprinted on Scott and Fox  executives. They wound up making Prometheus, which Fox considers an original but which I've heard is a cousin to the original Alien franchise. That film will be released June 8, 2012, with Charlize Theron, Michael Fassbender, Noomi Rapace, Patrick Wilson, Idris Elba and Guy Pearce starring.  

2 comments:

  1. Although i trust Ridley Scott more than George Lucas for example, i dunno if the appropriate look can be generated...lets hope so.The cast, should it remain this way, looks intersting. Especially Noomi Rapace is awesome...you should watch the original trilogy about the girl with the dragon tattoo.

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  2. Yea, she's a pretty intense actress. I'm looking forward to seeing what she does in the new Sherlock Holmes. I did enjoy the dragon tattoo trilogy, mainly the first one. i liked elements of the 2nd and 3rd, but they really didn't compare with the overall impact of the 1st. i liked the director of the 1st, but not the guy who did 2 and 3. but it was a good trilogy and Rapace was amazing.

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