The Blade Runner Thread

[Huol]

Nope.

[Hubbs]

LOL!! they could never ever in a million yrs make anything to come close to Ridleys classic, talk about sacrilege!! only Ridley can make anything to do with BR.

A horrendous cgi nightmare springs instantly to mind, what with a diabolical Robocop remake planned I think modern films have just about peaked at raping the classics

[SM]

I've always pictured a Blade Runner prequel dealing with the Replicants, like some of the stuff Roy mentions at the end of the film. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. C-beams glittering in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time...

Or the rebellious Nexus 6 combat unit that resulted in replicants being declared illegal on Earth [I don't believe this was Batty's crew(?)].

No.  Allthough they did do... "questionable things".

Just my knee-jerk reaction to the thought of a complete reboot (because sometimes actually reading something instead of skimming it is just too much work). A prequel or sequel wouldn't be as bad... I guess. *crosses arms and pouts*

It just gets back to the old argument of people cracking the shits (in general, not you personally) when the film they dig gets a sequel, or gets remade, or whatever.  It's not going to stop them enjoying the film they dig.

[Valaquen]

Exactly. AVPR may shit on the Alien franchises reputation, but not Alien itself, it's still respected.
A BR sequel/prequel is something I've been curious about, but it all comes down to Ridley/Fancher/Peoples and all the otehrs involved. Was it a one-off lightning in a bottle thing? Of course, even if it was, good sequels can be made. It all depends on the respect and care given, and then a whole load of other things ... jeez.

[SM]

I read a couple of Jeter's book sequels.  He tried to combine the film world of Blade Runner with the book world of Electric Sheep.  He had some interesting ideas, but ultimately they were kinda dull.  Much like those dreary fecking Star Wars novels he wrote...

[Sharp Sticks]

From io9.

http://io9.com/#!5775760/what-can-we-expect-from-the-new-blade-runner-movie-we-asked-the-producers

Yesterday we learned that the rights Blade Runner was getting a sequel or a prequel. We spoke with the producers behind this project, and asked them your burning questions. So, will it be Blade Runner 2 or Blade Runner Origins?

We spoke with the producers of the new Blade Runner film: Andrew Kosove, Broderick Johnson and Bud Yorkin. And here's what they told us.

Will this movie be a prequel or a sequel?

Kosove: We don't know, we just don't know yet. When we know, we'll let you know. We don't know yet it's too early. The only way to answer that is to say that we will have a process where we will hear hear different ideas from writers or potentially directors who we will bring in, in combination with the writers, before determining. We could be open to either a prequel or a sequel.

Why did you want the rights to Blade Runner?

Johnson: It's one of your favorite films, and we throughout that the universe that has been created here, is one that's complete with ideas and possibilities. We're intellectually fascinated and stimulated to explore the themes that the movie invokes and the underlying material. At the end of the day those are the things that make great movies. Those and characters and whatnot, it's an opportunity of a life time to try and explore this further?

What sort of stories do you think Blade Runner opened up that it didn't get to address?

Kosove: That's an interesting question. I think for us, one of the things that made this so timely is the fact that we're all living and we're kind of blessed to live in what is essentially the industrial revolution age for technology. And it's changing at such a rapid pace. Because of that, and because of the fact that Philip K. Dick is quite brilliant at imagining a world that maybe doesn't exist but is very quickly getting here. There are opportunities to think about either what our world will be like in our almost immediate near future. Or to think about what the world is after Blade Runner, because we have things that have come into our being, things that are a part of our consciousness now that we couldn't have imaged many years ago.

I was down in Dallas airport a couple weeks ago, and there was a robot who was going through the airport and was cleaning. But it was having conversations with people that were fluid conversations. It was quite extraordinary, and at that point I knew that we were on the verge of getting involved with this [Blade Runner film], and I thought [about] how fast the world is advancing and how possible Philip K. Dick's ideas were, and how much material was there to mine for the project, either the prequel or sequel.

It's interesting that you would mention the world before or after Blade Runner. The film was set in 2019, that's not very far away. Have you thought about how you're going to handle the date?

Kosove: That's part of a prequel and a sequel, right? If you do a prequel it's going to be in the very near future. So I think my point to you is that the very near future could seem profoundly different than the world we're living in today. Just like the world we're living in today is profoundly different from the world eight years ago. I don't think a prequel is out of the question, and at the same time we're open to a sequel. Alcon's process for the last number of years has always been about the quality of filmmakers that we've had the privilege of working with, and being open to ideas and creating an open environment. We're open to hearing ideas and then we'll make a determination as to what direction we're going to go.

Well we'd rather have a hypothetical conversation and just get the juices flowing. Can we at least discuss whether or not you'd be excited to film the bloody Replicant mutiny that Blade Runner teased in the intro? That kind of back story, like what happened that made them illegal

Kosove: That could be a phenomenal and fascinating way to go. Let me say this to you: the Pentagon is exploring all kinds of ways to engage in combat, without having to use actual human beings. You see it with the use of drones. The logical extension of that is exactly the world that Philip K Dick imagined, which is coming to a point where something that was not human is being charged to do tasks that we don't want human beings to do. And what if there was a degree of humanity in these "people," and how would they respond? So the idea that you just suggested, would be a fantastic way to lead into the movie. And that's why we need to approach that with an open mind.

There's a wealth of material just mentioned casually when they introduce the Replicants — "Oh, she's a pleasure model, he's a combat droid." It's wide open.

Bud Yorkin: We are going to have Replicants, obviously. That's part of what we started with originally. We're certainly going to have Replicants involved. By the way, Replicants can be any number of ways, and involved in the way humans work and live. Replicants will be different in the end somewhere. And you're right, that's part of the area that we will be involved with.

Have you reached out to Ridley Scott?

Kosove: The answer to that question is as follows. I'm going to answer it very briefly — we won't say if we've reached out to Ridley Scott or not, but what we will say is that Ridley Scott's blessing to what we're doing is very important to Alcon. It's important to Bud [Yorkin], and certainly we have the greatest degree of respect to him as a filmmaker. He's one of the greatest living directors and one of the greatest directors of all time. so of course he's very important.

When we posted the news, reactions were split right down the middle. Some fans felt this could be good, because we have to we have the technology to make this really fascinating. And then there were a lot of people worried that Hollywood was going to ruin the legacy of Blade Runner. Can you address those fans' concerns?

Kosove: I would really appreciate it if you guys could clarify something: Alcon is not owned by Warner Bros. None of this is being paid by WB. We are a wholly independent financial and production company. Our relationship with Warner, which is very strong, runs back to the earliest years of our company. They're the distributor on all of our movies. First of all, we're paying for everything, but second of all — and this a way of answering maybe partially the concerns of your fans — this may work, or it may not work. We may make this movie, but in truth it may never get made.

But what I can tell you for certain today is that we will not go about this process in some form of large group think where 15 execs are going to sit around a table micromanaging the creative talent. Broderick and I will meet with writers and directors and we will figure out what direction we want to go and what story we believe in.

And then we will have them the artistic autonomy to go out and make a great movie and I think what ever success we've had at Alcon whether it was helping Chris Nolan's career with Insomnia, or working with the Hughes bros on Book of Eli or Jonathan Hancock with Blind Side — that philosophy of believing in filmmakers, giving them some parameters and then letting them do their jobs, has served us very very well. And it's how we'll approach this process. I don't know how better to answer the question than that.

Do you have any pie in the sky writers or directors that in a perfect world would sign on tomorrow?

Kosove: Pie in the sky? Yeah our friend Chris Nolan who we did Insomnia [with] would be in the pie in the sky for us.

That's good to hear. That means you're going for the gritty realism that was in the original.

Kosove: To be clear I think what Chris Nolan did — and to be clear, we cannot remake Blade Runner. As a legal matter, we have not bought the remake rights we have no interest in remaking it we can only do prequels or sequels. But I think the methodology that Chris Nolan brought to Batman is precisely what we aspire to whomever the filmmaker is, whether Ridley comes back and joins us or it's someone else. It's precisely what we aspire to with Blade Runner, that's the template for us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1K0Adi8DP0#

[TJ Doc]

But seriously, I don't really see the problem. And I've always wanted to see more of the Runnerverse, so hopefully whatever they do eventually end up doing won't disappoint.

That much.

[Valaquen]

we cannot remake Blade Runner

You damn straight you can't. But, they seem mild-tempered enough. Thanks for the interview, Sticks.

[SM]

The location scouting in Scotland isn't for Alien at all.  It's for two films of helicopter shots of Deckard and Rachel driving.

[Sharp Sticks]

I think what  disturbs me about that interview is that a) each producer's grasp of the English language brings to mind memories of Sarah Palin being interviewed by Katie Couric, and b) none of them seem to understand or care about about the source material. They just babble on about 'possibilities' and 'the Pentagon' and 'airport robots' and how 'it's too early to know what we're going to do'. Whenever they're asked a question about the Android Rebellions or something specific regarding the original film, they ignore it and change the subject.

Maybe I'm just overanalyzing this stuff, but I'm getting awful vibes. I'd be more enthused about Lawrence of Arabia 2 : Electric Boogaloo than this.

Well. I've still got Blomkamp. He's my chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure.

[Bad Replicant]

It just gets back to the old argument of people cracking the shits (in general, not you personally) when the film they dig gets a sequel, or gets remade, or whatever.  It's not going to stop them enjoying the film they dig.

This is true, and I didn't mean to imply that a remake would tarnish the original. It was more the idea that someone could actually watch Blade Runner and say something like "Now here's a film that needs to be re-imagined. Suzie, get McG on the line." got the nerd rage flowin' a bit. However, they're not even talking about a remake, and I've taken my lithium, so I guess I'll just wait and see.

[Salt The Fries]

DO NOT WANT

Same.

[Mr. Domino]

I really enjoyed Jeter's novel sequels (although I only read the first two), but they wouldn't really make good films, especially not now - for one thing, they used all the characters from the original film directly after its events, not 30 years later. As far as prequels go, though, Boom is right now just finishing up a complete graphic novel adaptation of DADoES?, and along with it they did a short prequel series authorized by the Dick estate which was quite good, although it was set in the DADoES?-verse, not Blade Runner-ville.

[Michael Harper]

From 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. He'll make the film with Alcon Entertainment, producing with Alcon partners Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove. This would be the most high profile project for Alcon since The Blind Side.

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, who starred that 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.  Scott is repped by WME.

Interesting eh? Dunno how it's gonna work without Harrison Ford. He was a replicant wasn't he?

[chupacabras acheronsis]

Let's all hope Ridley has a good story to tell. i wouldn't mind if they picked up and developed characters from Blade Runner, but i would be dissapointed it's not an original story. the universe of the movie can do so much more than that.