Why Blade Runner 2049 Flopped So Hard

8. Rose-Tinted Appreciation Of The Original

Appreciation of Blade Runner these days seems to come from a very vocal, surprisingly small fanbase (the same ones who made up much of the opening weekend audience), who fail to remember that the film made no money when it first came out. They also seem to ignore the fact that the infamous extended post-release tinkering process (which saw numerous cuts released in search of the perfect one) actually suggest that the film was never actually as polished as it may have seemed.

Blade Runner is a high-concept, highly-atmospheric sci-fi that made a little over $30m at the box office and which has taken on a cultural importance that seems to miss the fact that it's not all that purely entertaining. It's more of a cult thing, whose appreciation over time has inspired confidence in the brand that shouldn't be there.

Sure, it's technically impressive and it's like a living artifact of its genre (to the extent that anything that even remotely resembles it is said to be directly influenced), but its rewards aren't quite in tune with what lucrative mainstream audiences spend money on or talk about afterwards in glowing fashion. Impressive simply does not always mean entertaining.