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May 17, 2012

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Hampton Fancher is in talks to reunite with his Blade Runner director Ridley Scott to develop the idea for the original screenplay for the Alcon Entertainment follow up to the ground-breaking 1982 science fiction classic, the Blade Runner Project , it was announced by Alcon co-founders and co-Chief Executive Officers Broderick Johnson and Andrew A. Kosove.

The filmmakers are also revealing for the first time that the much-anticipated project is intended to be a sequel to the renowned original. The filmmakers would reveal only that the new story will take place some years after the first film concluded.

The three-time Oscar-nominated Ridley Scott and his Blade Runner collaborator Hampton Fancher originally conceived of their 1982 classic as the first in a series of films incorporating the themes and characters featured in Philip K. Dick's groundbreaking novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", from which Blade Runner was adapted. Circumstances, however, took Ridley Scott into other directions and the project never advanced.

Hampton Fancher, although a writer of fiction, was known primarily as an actor at the time Ridley Scott enlisted him to adapt the novel for the screen. Hampton Fancher followed his Blade Runner success with the screenplays, The Mighty Quinn (1989) and The Minus Man (1999). He has continued to write fiction throughout his career.

The original film, which has been singled out as the greatest science-fiction film of all time by a majority of genre publications, was selected for preservation in the United States National FilmRegistry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

The film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 1993 and is frequently taught in university courses. In 2007, it was named the 2nd most visually influential film of all time by the Visual Effects Society.

The Untitled Blade Runner Project comes to theaters in 2014.

Visually (effects-wise) "Blade Runner" simply an extension of what Douglas Trumbull pioneered in 1977's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" even down to filming the effects in higher resolution 70mm so that the film grain wouldn't change when composited and edited with 35mm shots of regular stuff.

So the Visual Effects Society is a bit suspect for naming it film number two for effects and should know better! Where is this list?

[Edited 5/17/12 21:27pm]

After Prometheus, I'm not sure Scott is the best director for such a project now.

imago said:

After Prometheus, I'm not sure Scott is the best director for such a project now.

He should do an Axe deoderant commercial next.

This is destined to suck.

I JUST saw "Blade Runner" recently (director'as cut) and it did nothing for me. I can see why it didn't grab people when it was released.

And again Hollywood wants folks to be idea-less...

ufoclub said:

imago said:

After Prometheus, I'm not sure Scott is the best director for such a project now.

He should do an Axe deoderant commercial next.

CynicKill said:

I JUST saw "Blade Runner" recently (director'as cut) and it did nothing for me. I can see why it didn't grab people when it was released.

I'm not the biggest fan either. It looks great, but clearly the androids wouldn't need any kind of test to know they are not real. It's ridiculously obvious that Rutger Hauer is not a real human, despite putting on a great ham of a performance.

This is one movie I actually would not mind being re-done, a lot more true to the novel. Bring in the fucking sheep, how about? Of course, Hollywood would never do that, they would make the androids even more ridiculous and hammy. It would have to be an indie movie to pull it off the right way

It just wouldn't be the same without Vangelis and the Yamaha CS-80.

NDRU said:

CynicKill said:

I JUST saw "Blade Runner" recently (director'as cut) and it did nothing for me. I can see why it didn't grab people when it was released.

I'm not the biggest fan either. It looks great, but clearly the androids wouldn't need any kind of test to know they are not real. It's ridiculously obvious that Rutger Hauer is not a real human, despite putting on a great ham of a performance.

This is one movie I actually would not mind being re-done, a lot more true to the novel. Bring in the fucking sheep, how about? Of course, Hollywood would never do that, they would make the androids even more ridiculous and hammy. It would have to be an indie movie to pull it off the right way

Yes...I've always thought that movie was rather dull and uninvolving - nice to look at, of course, but nothing very compelling in terms of story. I read the book over twenty years ago, and have only the vaguest memories of it, but do recall liking it and thinking it was probably a better story than what made it to screen. I would be interested if someone with the right eye for that kind of material tried to make a faithful adaptation. I actually just picked up a collection of four of Dick's novels from the sixties, so I'll be reading the book again at some point over the next month or so.

That said. anything that keeps Ridley Scott occupied will prevent him from churning out a Prometheus sequel, so that's a net win in my books.

Now what does excite me little is the news that apparently there is a BBC adaptation of 'The Man in the High Castle' in the works. This was the first Philip k. book I read (it's also in the collection I picked up - just read it this past weekend, in fact) and while I don't think it was a total success as a novel I've always thought it could make for a good film adaptation. Alternate realities are a little tired now, I suppose, but I would say this material has the potential to make for a better film than Blade Runner.

http://www.slashfilm.com/...gh-castle/

[Edited 7/17/12 1:30am]