Legendary director is close to "committing to direct and produce a film that advances his seminal and groundbreaking science fiction film" some 30 years after he first made it!
Wow. You know, they say you should never go back and history, especially your own, should be left well and truly alone but clearly legendary director Ridley Scott doesn't buy into all that. Right now he is going through a phase of his career where he is eagerly returning to the worlds where his very best movies have come from. Having made the Gladiator follow-up he always wanted to make with the swords & arrows actioner Robin Hood two years ago, he swiftly returned to the Alien franchise after over thirty years of doing other things with the currently filming Prometheus. Now the news breaks today that Scott has his eyes firmly set on the Blade Runner universe as his next time machine endeavor. Deadline are reporting that the legendary filmmaker is close to "committing to direct and produce a film that advances his seminal and groundbreaking science fiction film" and it would seem likely to be his next motion picture after Prometheus. The deal has been brewing ever since Alcon Entertainment bought the rights in March to the Blade Runner film universe and struck a deal with Warner Bros to push forward a prequel or sequel franchise out of the material. Interestingly, I wrote at the time;
I sincerely hope Ridley Scott got a phone call with first refusal (hes returning to his Alien franchise next so why not?) and if nothing else, just so he could be informed that a deal was imminent before he reads it online.
And it would seem Scott has indeed accepted the first refusal offer! This will be Alcon's biggest film since The Blind Side. Right now it's unclear as to whether Scott wants to sequel or prequelize the 1982 film that played it loose with Phillip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, or whether he intends to reach out to it's star Harrison Ford... who if a precedent needs to be set, did five years ago agree to return as Indiana Jones for a big payday with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas and who seems to be working in bigger movies more frequently than he has in the past. Though last I heard Ford isn't a fan of Blade Runner. What we know for sure is that Scott can't remake Blade Runner (not that he would want too) because Alcon don't have the rights to do that, they can only prequel or sequelize the property. We also know that Bud Yorkin, executive producer of the '82 film, will have the same role here. We also know it'll be in 3D just like Prometheus as Scott has vowed never to go back to 2D technology. What we can also be sure of is Scott further expanding what we know of the universe and building something much more expansive with the property and I think you can look to Prometheus as a good example of what we can expect. Same universe... but new ideas. I wouldn't at all be surprised if he again looks to Damon Lindelof to write the screenplay with him.Blade Runner was of course set in 2019, a year that is now a lot more foreseeable. In the original, organic robots with superhuman powers called replicants were hiding on Earth and it was up to the blade runners hunt them down. Ford played Deckard, a kind of Raymond Chandler/Humphrey Bogart esque runner who falls in love with a replicant and is determined to keep her alive. So what do I make of all this, a near three decade long new entry to one of the greatest sci-fi films ever made. Well the same way I did about an Alien prequel. Ridley Scott is not George Lucas. He is not over the hill and is a filmmaker who wants to grow and further challenge himself in this industry. Although his movies in the past ten years haven't been up to the standard of what he made in the 80's, they sure as hell beat his 90's work and the majority of them are accomplished and first rate motion pictures. If he can find a way to make a movie in this universe (and our advise would be to follow somebody elses journey and never utter the name Deckard in this one) and expand his ideas... then I'm all for it. Rather Ridley than someone else. I mean on the one hand, outside of Chris Nolan he would be the only director I would event want to make a movie in the Blade Runner universe if it just HAD to be made. And on the other hand, that's just it - a Blade Runner 2 doesn't need to be made. But.. Ridley clearly wants to get back into sci-fi. And it's probably a sad state the genre finds it in when he must go back to his own seminal classic when he can't get movies out of Aldus Huxleys Brave New World or Joe Haldeman's The Forever War off the ground. And rather this than Monopoly, eh? What's your thoughts on this?