Ridley Scott has confirmed that the upcoming Blade Runner film will be a sequel.
Early this year we reported that Alcon Entertainment had bought the rights to the Blade Runner franchise with a beautiful caveat: they are not allowed to remake the original film. They could shoot a sequel or a prequel or a sidequel, but they could not touch any part of the canon established by the original, ground-breaking, genre-defining film – which was itself a loose adaptation of the Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Then, just a few months ago, Ridley Scott was signed on to direct and produce the new film, which is exciting, but we still didn’t know what it was going to be until this weekend.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Scott said that the movie is most likely going to be a sequel, and that he’s currently just looking for the right person to write the script.
“I think I’m close to finding a writer that might be able to help me deliver,” Scott said. “We’re quite a long way in, actually.”
When asked about the popularity original film, Scott commented that he thinks it wasn’t very popular at first because people were expecting a sci-fi film about robots, but instead got a deep morality tale.
Since then, of course, much of genre filmmaking has adapted to match Blade Runner’s style, as the movie became one of the most popular and iconic movies in history – and not just among genre films.
Scott also confirmed that there wouldn’t be any members of the previous cast returning. When asked if that meant that Detective Deckard would not be in the film, he answered, “No, not really.”
Scott’s current project – Prometheus – is in post-production and will hit theaters early next summer. The director is also working on a new television show for the Science Channel called Prophets of Science Fiction, which looks at various sci-fi authors and the many technologies which existed in the pages of a book long before they became a reality.
The new Blade Runner project has no announced production or release dates.
