The biggest and most surprising bit of movie news this week was yesterday’s announcement that Alcon Entertainment had lured Blade Runner director Ridley Scott back to produce and direct a new film in the cinematic world that he created with his 1982 science-fiction classic.
Andrew Kosove, the Alcon Entertainment producer who will be working with Scott on the film, spoke to the LA Times and briefly elaborated on the plans for the film. He states that getting the director involved in some capacity was of primary importance.
We had a few Plan Bs. But we were really focusing on Plan A, which was Ridley.
Scott was initially approached to be involved with the project soon after Alcon bought the Blade Runner prequel/sequel rights last March. Kosove and his partner Broderick Johnson flew to London for a meeting with the director during which time they discussed “out how a new film would look, how it could avoid seeming too similar to the many movies that have since paid homage to the original, and how different the new film should be from the original itself.” Inspired by the meeting, Scott made a handshake deal with Kosove to do the film and agents and lawyers sprung into action to set up the deal which was finally announced yesterday.
Armed with his thoughts about what the movie should be, Scott’s next step is to meet with writers to pick one to find the right one to turn those ideas into a screenplay.
Kosove cautions that the time it will take to hire a writer, get a screenplay crafted and move the project to a point where filming can start will probably take approximately 18 months. If shooting were to start in early 2013, the earliest we could hope to see the film would be early 2014.
Kosove also stated that ultimately whether this film is a sequel or a prequel, it will pretty much stand on its own and won’t have too many overt connections to the plot of the original Blade Runner.
Everything Ridley does as a filmmaker is fresh… I believe he sees an opportunity to create something that’s wholly original from the first Blade Runner.
Unfortunately, this means that there will probably be no cameo from the original film’s star Harrison Ford.
In no way do I speak for Ridley Scott… But if you’re asking me will this movie have anything to do with Harrison Ford, the answer is no. This is a total reinvention, and in my mind that means doing everything fresh, including casting.
I suspect that with the exception of news about a writer being hired for the project that this will be the last we hear about the project for a while, at least until next year when Scott begins doing publicity for his upcoming not-quite-a-prequel-to-Alien Alien prequel Prometheus.
