Following up on yesterday’s announcement that the rights to 1982’s Blade Runner appear to be headed to Alcon Entertainment, i09 has spoken with producers Broderick Johnson, Andrew Kosove, and Bud Yorkin. The group has revealed that development plans are in the very, very early stages and that writers will be brought in before the best take is decided on for how to set up another film.
While the “pie in the sky” choice for director is named by Kosove as being Christopher Nolan (who did work with Alcon on Insomnia), the group also teases that Scott’s return is not out of the question.
“I think the methodology that Chris Nolan brought to ‘Batman’ is precisely what we aspire to whomever the filmmaker is,” says the producer, “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.”
While he won’t specify whether or not contact with Scott has already been established, he does say that Alcon will, at the very least, hope for the director’s approval.
“[W]hat we will say is that Ridley Scott’s blessing to what we’re doing is very important to Alcon,” Kosove adds, “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.
Loosely based on the 1968 Philip K. Dick novel, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”, the original film is heralded as seminal cinematic achievement. The novel actually received three “authorized” sequels, written by K.W. Jeter, a friend of Dick’s, entitled “The Edge of Human,” “Replicant Night” and “Eye and Talon.” David Peoples, the co-writer of the 1982 film, also stated his belief that his 1998 film, Soldier (directed by Paul W.S. Anderson and starring Kurt Russell) took place in the same canonical universe.
While attempts at a Blade Runner sequel have been made for decades, this latest iteration is likely on some level influenced by Scott’s return to his first science fiction universe, that of the 1979 film Alien, in the upcoming quasi-prequel, Prometheus.
