Controversial though it may be, Prometheus has proven a bit of a worldwide hit. Question is, can Ridley Scott pull of the same trick twice and make a belated sequel to Blade Runner a success as well?
Hard info on the project is thin on the ground at the moment, but here’s what we do know:
• It’ll be a sequel (not a prequel, remake or reimagining)
• Original Blade Runner scriptwriter Hampton Fancher is working on the first draft of the script, which, to be honest, feels more like a publicity-motivated or fan-pleasing decision than an artistic one. The original’s script was hardly the strngest element in the mix, and Fancher has written a mere two film scripts – The Minus Man (hands up if tyou’ve heard of that one) and The Mighty Quinn (ditto) – in the intervening time. Expect to hear news stories about new writers being brought in about six months from now…
• Scott wants it to have a female lead.
• it will be set “some years” after the original.
• Scott thinks Harrison Ford should be in it as Deckard, but he wouldn’t be the star. Presumably somebody finds him in a shack out in the wilds, all old and grizzly. Or maybe they find him in the Overlook hotel?
• Scott has described one scene he’d like to put into the film: “There’ll be a vast farmland where there are no hedges or anything in sight, and it’s flat like the plains of – where’s the Great Plains in America? Kansas, where you can see for miles. And it’s dirt, but it’s being raked. On the horizon is a combine harvester which is futuristic with klieg lights, ’cause it’s dawn. The harvester is as big as six houses. In the foreground is a small white clapboard hut with a porch as if it was from Grapes Of Wrath . From the right comes a car, coming in about six feet off the ground being chased by a dog. And that’s the end of it, I’m not gonna tell you anything else.” (Hmm, now we’re thinking it’s Deckard driving the harvester…) [via Collider ]
So there are the facts. Here comes some speculation.
Wishlist is a regular feature we run in the mag where we get you to tell us – via the SFX forum – what you want to see in some in-development project. The subject of this month’s Wishlist (in SFX 223, on sale now ) is Blade Runner 2 , and as a special treat we’re posting it here as well (worth noting that the call for reader responses went out before much of what’s reported above became common knowledge…)
Your Top 5 suggestions:
1 Don’t Do It!
We don’t like to be negative on Wishlist, but the overwhelming sentiment from the SFX forum was “Don’t do it!” SaynaHawk put it best in the thread’s very first post: “No!”
2 Same Universe, Different Story
After the obligatory decrying, Wee Little Puppet Man proposed an idea we can get behind, “If it has to be made then I’d like it to be its own self contained story set in the same world but not related to the original.”
3 Casting Call
Michael Fassbender was the favourite choice to be Deckard or Batty (though presumably Batty won’t be in it, him being dead an’ all*, so we’ll go for Fassbender as “main replicant antagonist”) ; but glunark expanded the cast list further. “I’d like to see Ben Browder as Deckard, Gerard Butler as his partner, Summer Glau as one of the replicants, and Danny Trejo playing Gaff.”
(* Though in sci-fi, death is easily recoverable from.)
4 Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?
“I think they should look at some of the elements in Dick’s book,” says hammard . “The idea Deckard might be a replicant, the quasi-religious elements and showing some of the off-world stuff referenced in the first film.”
5 This Time It’s War
If Ridley Scott does go the sequel route, we’re in full support of this idea: “Maybe the aftermath of Deckard’s actions? How he’s destroyed the system after his acts of rebellion!” says jimene89.
SFX’s Top Suggestion
If the movie does get made, can we please have some trailers that don’t give away near-on the entire plot of the movie?
And some other suggestions fom the forum that piqued our interest:
“If it must be revisited, how about a gritty TV show? Blade Runner crossed with The Shield ?” vonbloodbath
“Ridley Scott was smart enough to avoid trying to recapture the glory of Alien by going in a very different direction with Prometheus . Would he really risk a straight sequel/prequel to Blade Runner ? ” Tiny
“I want unicorns. A whole herd of ’em! (Is that even the correct collective noun?)” Midnighter
“I’d like to see a big space battle with replicants, but that’s just because I fancy seeing some big-screen space battles.” count_libido
“Replace the replicants with vampires and Harrison Ford with Wesley Snipes.” darkman
“Knowing Ridley Scott already wondered why no one has ever wondered what the Space Jockey was doing in Alien, he’s probably wondering why no one has ever wondered whether Deckard was a replicant or not.” The Yeti
“Something that focuses on human/replicant socialisation.” Tao
“Make a film of Roy Batty’s dying soliloquy, show us the things we people wouldn’t believe.” AvonKerr
“If they have to make this film, I would like to see Gaff tracking down Deckard, who has now been outed as a replicant.” Donnie Darko
“What is acceptable is if a director who loves PKD wishes to make a film of Do Androids.. ., because the book is different and can be made again, in the same way that an Austen can.” Of Mars
“With the number of versions that we have of the film, surely it counts as its own prequel by now?” Hedwig
