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Ridley Scott Ready To Direct New Version Of Seminal Sci-Fi Film 'Blade Runner'
deadline.com ^ | August 18, 2011 | MIKE FLEMING

Posted on 08/18/2011 11:33:20 AM PDT by BBell

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. They got control of the franchise earlier this year, but it's a whole different ballgame with Scott at the helm.

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. The original 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.


TOPICS: Arts/Photography; Music/Entertainment; TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: bladerunner; ridleyscott
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To: NormsRevenge
Just like bought & paid for government today none but whorepuppets are allowed on top.

Nothing but evil agenda subterfuge spews forth.

21 posted on 08/18/2011 12:10:33 PM PDT by de.rm ('Most people never believe anything you tell them unless it isn't true."-Groucho Marx)
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To: BBell

if my memory serves me right almost everyone associated with the film hated every moment of it’s production


22 posted on 08/18/2011 12:11:45 PM PDT by Cyman
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To: BBell

I remember hating the movie when I first saw it in 1982. I figured sci-fi, Harrison Ford! Another Star Wars! Not! Now I love the movie, especially the opening scene with its haunting sound track and great visuals.


23 posted on 08/18/2011 12:13:21 PM PDT by 6SJ7 (atlasShruggedInd = TRUE)
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To: Lee'sGhost

It’s just a VTOL car. The F-35 spits out smoke doesn’t it?


24 posted on 08/18/2011 12:14:12 PM PDT by GunRunner (10 Years of FReeping...)
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To: Vaquero
it seems in the directors cut, they took out the Harrison Ford narration...making the movie for newcomers or those with CRS like me, unwatchable....

The director's cut of Blade Runner was the very first DVD I ever purchased, right along with the $1500 first-generation Sony DVD player. DVDs have gone the way of VHS but Blade Runner is still alive, apparently.

IMHO, the director's cut of Blade Runner greatly improved what was a flawed movie but didn't make it into a great movie. I loved the style but just never found the substance (what there was of it) very compelling. I still watch parts of it sometimes just because it's visually stunning.
25 posted on 08/18/2011 12:14:56 PM PDT by AnotherUnixGeek
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To: Huck

without the narration it is unwatchable unless you have a program...

...cant tell one android from another without a program...

kind of like 2001

I read the book(2001 by Clarke) just before seeing it in 1966 and knew what I was watching..everyone else I went to see it with said “WOW! WTF was that?” in later years some of the same people took acid and went to see it and did not care what it was about....

Blade runner of course does not have the eye candy affect of 2001 so it was not appreciated on that level..

but Blade Runner is just another example of why I hate directors cuts....


26 posted on 08/18/2011 12:15:03 PM PDT by Vaquero ("an armed society is a polite society" Robert A. Heinlein)
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To: DBrow
Can’t they do something NEW?

No. They're remaking Footloose for Heaven's sake.

What I have seen so far, it is a duplicate, the scenes appear to be identical.

Boring!

27 posted on 08/18/2011 12:16:45 PM PDT by RikaStrom (Pray for Obama - Psalm 109:8 "Let his days be few; and let another take his place of leadership.")
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To: BBell

Blade Runner... The best siFi movie ever made. Hollywood will screw this one up....


28 posted on 08/18/2011 12:16:48 PM PDT by baddog 219
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To: Vaquero

Let’s agree to never discuss any movies ever again. It’s too disturbing. Thanks.


29 posted on 08/18/2011 12:20:46 PM PDT by Huck (Read Antifederalist Brutus)
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To: BBell

STOP THE REMAKES! Write something NEW! If the apocalypse comes and I am able to get my family to safety I am going to go to Hollywood and kill everyone the zombies missed!


30 posted on 08/18/2011 12:23:18 PM PDT by douginthearmy
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To: de.rm

Yeah, but its what the masses want, right?

It’s a shame, so much ‘talent’ , so little respect or at least a modest attempt at decency. :-)


31 posted on 08/18/2011 12:23:32 PM PDT by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi ... Godspeed .. Monthly Donor Onboard .. Obama: Epic Fail or Bust!!!)
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To: DBrow
"and thinning of a better idea"

I agree. A movie is rarely as good as a book but in the case of Electric Sheep the book is just brilliant and the movie, well, it needs the brightness control tweaked. I guess by 2019 we've used up all the electricity and the only light we have it by flaring up big flames in the middle of town. Or maybe Taffy Lewis is using it all. Go figure.

32 posted on 08/18/2011 12:23:54 PM PDT by Proud_texan (Scare people enough and they'll do anything.)
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To: BBell
Bad idea. If he wants to revisit his old movies, why not do one that he totally whiffed on? Maybe he could make a watchable version of "Legend".


33 posted on 08/18/2011 12:25:41 PM PDT by yuleeyahoo (Liberty is not collective, it is personal. All liberty is individual liberty. - Calvin Coolidge)
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To: Proud_texan

Check out Screamers, it’s actually pretty close to Second Variety, though his family didn’t think so. The level and depth of paranoia, despair, and fear (plus being sold out) is pretty well done. It’s set on some planet other than Earth, for some reason.


34 posted on 08/18/2011 12:33:46 PM PDT by DBrow
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To: evets

I was very young when I saw this movie. That scene really blew my mind and is one of the most memorable from the silver screen for me.
and by the way - how the heck are you able to grab screen shots like that??


35 posted on 08/18/2011 12:40:03 PM PDT by warsaw44
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To: DBrow
Thanks for the heads up, always appreciated and by chance I read Second Variety just last week and it reminded me that I wanted to see Screamers again. Typically I forgot to add it to my queue but it's now safely there thanks to you.

For my money no one can quite do mental illness, paranoia and despair like Dick.

Do you have a favorite of his? I just tried to pick one and it kept changing, sort of like the book of the Kalends....

36 posted on 08/18/2011 12:45:07 PM PDT by Proud_texan (Scare people enough and they'll do anything.)
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To: cripplecreek

Me too. Roy Batty’s death scene is one of the better ones put to film, IMHO.


37 posted on 08/18/2011 12:53:18 PM PDT by wbill
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To: wbill

Its a thoughtful scene that doesn’t make a lot of sense until its explained.

I’m usually not a fan of moral equivalency in films but in the case of Blade Runner it presents some questions that we actually do need to confront in our modern world.


38 posted on 08/18/2011 12:59:48 PM PDT by cripplecreek (Remember the River Raisin)
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To: Vaquero

There is a good reason why the original movies were cut as they were, subsequent “Director’s Cut” films are to make money and involve shoving back in a lot of deleted scenes which were deleted.

My God the longer version of Apocalypse Now is an abomination that destroys the experience of watching the original masterpiece.


39 posted on 08/18/2011 1:46:42 PM PDT by Williams (Honey Badger Don't Care)
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To: BBell
Hollyweird is a miasma of banality.
40 posted on 08/18/2011 1:54:22 PM PDT by TASMANIANRED (We kneel to no prince but the Prince of Peace)
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