So, they’re making a Blade Runner prequel. Or sequel. Or companion piece. Or something. Whatever it is, Alcon Entertainment producer Andrew Kosove wants all your frothing fanboys to know this [thanks to /Film, via iO9]:
We don’t know, we just don’t know yet. When we know, we’ll let you know. We don’t know yet it’s too early. The only way to answer that is to say that we will have a process where we will hear hear different ideas from writers or from potential directors who we will bring in, in combination with the writers, before determining. We could be open to either a prequel or a sequel.
They don’t know what it is, but it’s something. That’s for sure. And why not? Ridley Scott remains one of the most popular and sought-after directors alive – and now his classic movies are up for grabs. (Since Prometheus is – but isn’t! – an Alien prequel.) How does Ridley Scott feel about this? Who knows!
Kosove: The answer to that question is as follows. I’m going to answer it very briefly — we won’t say if we’ve reached out to Ridley Scott or not, but what we will say is that Ridley Scott’s blessing to what we’re doing is very important to Alcon. 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.
To get the real meat of what Alcon may – or, again, may not – have in mind, check out the actual article, because it’s fascinating in it’s vagueness. They can’t really remake it – but they want to make another movie in that world. But what the hell are they doing with this property? Can we get a straight answer? Well, no:
I would really appreciate it if you guys could clarify something: Alcon is not owned by Warner Bros. None of this is being paid by WB. We are a wholly independent financial and production company. Our relationship with Warner, which is very strong, runs back to the earliest years of our company. They’re the distributor on all of our movies. First of all, we’re paying for everything, but second of all — and this a way of answering maybe partially the concerns of your fans — this may work, or it may not work. We may make this movie, but in truth it may never get made. But what I can tell you for certain today is that we will not go about this process in some form of large group think where 15 executives are going to sit around a table micromanaging the creative talent. Broderick and I will meet with writers and directors and we will figure out what direction we want to go and what story we believe in. And then they will have the artistic autonomy to go out and make a great movie. I think whatever success we’ve had at Alcon, whether it was helping Chris Nolan’s career with Insomnia, or working with the Hughes Brothers on Book of Eli or Jonathan Hancock with Blind Side — that philosophy of believing in filmmakers, giving them some parameters and then letting them do their jobs, has served us very very well. And it’s how we’ll approach this process. I don’t know how better to answer the question than that.
Duly noted, just for the record. And who would Kosove and Bud Yorkin and Broderick Johnson absolutely love to direct this thing? Who do you think?
Pie in the sky? Yeah our friend Chris Nolan who we did Insomnia [with] would be in the pie in the sky for us.
That’s good to hear. That means you’re going for the gritty realism that was in the original.
Kosove: To be clear I think what Chris Nolan did — and to be clear, we cannot remake Blade Runner. As a legal matter, we have not bought the remake rights we have no interest in remaking it we can only do prequels or sequels. But I think the methodology that Chris Nolan brought to Batman is precisely what we aspire to whomever the filmmaker is, 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.
And this falls squarely into the “Well, Duh.” category. Especially given that Nolan screened Blade Runner for the cast and crew of Batman Begins, in order to get them all in the proper mindset for what he wanted that film to become. And not to mention that little sci-fi flick he made called Inception, which won four Academy Awards and has become, in hindsight, the most snubbed Oscar-flick in recent memory. (I mean, I really liked The King’s Speech and Black Swan, and loved The Social Network and Toy Story 3 and True Grit… but the best movie I saw last year was still Inception. Let the denials fly!)
So the world awaits something resembling details about this project. I don’t really think Blade Runner needs any prequel, sequel or reboot – but that hasn’t stopped Hollywood before, has it? io9 pointed out that since the original film was set in 2019 – eight years from now – a prequel is fast losing it’s window of believability. (I mean, visit Southern California. The notion that it might be a fire-breathing slag-heap in less than a decade is still pretty feasible). Plus, the term “Blade Runner” never appeared in the original Philip K. Dick, novel Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sleep – and all the replicants were destroyed – right? Right? Well, maybe we’ll find out.
Do we need a Blade Runner prequel? What about a prequel? What about a reboot? What about a companion piece? What about a sitcom set in that world, starring John Stamos and Charlie Sheen?