By MCN Editor editor@moviecitynews.com

ALCON ENTERTAINMENT PARTNERING WITH RIDLEY SCOTT TO DIRECT AND PRODUCE NEW ‘BLADE RUNNER’ FOLLOW UP

Posted Thursday, August 18th, 2011 - 3 Comments »
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BUD YORKIN AND CYNTHIA SIKES YORKIN ALSO TO PRODUCE

LOS ANGELES, CA, AUGUST 18, 2011—Three-time Oscar-nominated director Ridley Scott is set to helm a follow up to his own ground-breaking 1982 science fiction classic “Blade Runner” for Warner Bros-based financing and production company Alcon Entertainment (“The Blind Side,” “The Book of Eli”).

Alcon co-founders and co-Chief Executive Officers Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove will produce with Bud Yorkin and Cynthia Sikes Yorkin, along with Ridley Scott. Frank Giustra and Tim Gamble, CEO’s of Thunderbird Films, will serve as executive producers.

The filmmakers have not yet revealed whether the theatrical project will be a prequel or sequel to the renowned original.

Alcon and Yorkin recently announced that they are partnering to produce “Blade Runner” theatrical sequels and prequels, in addition to all television and interactive productions.

The original film, which has been singled out as the greatest science-fiction film of all time by a majority of genre publications, was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” The film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 1993 and is frequently taught in university courses. In 2007, it was named the 2nd most visually influential film of all time by the Visual Effects Society.

State Kosove and Johnson: “It would be a gross understatement to say that we are elated Ridley Scott will shepherd this iconic story into a new, exciting direction. We are huge fans of Ridley’s and of the original ‘Blade Runner.’ This is once in a lifetime project for us.”

Scott is represented by David Wirtschafter at WME and David Nochinson at Ziffren Brittenham.

Released by Warner Bros. almost 30 years ago, “Blade Runner” was adapted by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples from Philip K. Dick’s groundbreaking novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” and directed by Scott following his landmark “Alien.” The film was nominated for two Academy Awards (Best Visual Effects, and Best Art Direction). Following the filming of “Blade Runner,” the first of Philip K. Dick’s works to be adapted into a film, many other of Dick’s works were likewise adapted, including “Total Recall,” “A Scanner Darkly,” “Minority Report,” “Paycheck,” and the recent “The Adjustment Bureau,” among others.

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Posted in Movie City News, Press Releases | 3 Comments »

3 Responses to “ALCON ENTERTAINMENT PARTNERING WITH RIDLEY SCOTT TO DIRECT AND PRODUCE NEW ‘BLADE RUNNER’ FOLLOW UP”

  1. Roy Batty says:
    August 18, 2011 at 12:16 pm

    No writers, no target release date, no start date. Another maybe in a hat-ful of next-possible-Ridley-Scott-movies.

    If Ridley Scott dies in 10 years he’ll still have 20 years of future projects…

  2. spassky says:
    August 18, 2011 at 12:43 pm

    Maybe he can explore the religious dimensions of Dick’s novel a little bit more completely than he did with BR?

    In all reality, he probably thinks of BR as strictly his creative property… i mean he did completely change the look of the environment from the vast emptiness of the book to the dense urbanized japanamerica of the movie.

    has anyone looked at the original storyboards in that textbook shot-for-shot and just been giddy with the thought of what if?

    and lastly: does this mean a 3d rerelease of the original? To my own surprise, i think i would be really in to that…

  3. The Pope says:
    August 18, 2011 at 2:03 pm

    I adore Blade Runner but it would be more than a great pity (a tragedy?) if this project is seen by the focus of a lens. One of the reasons why BR is so good and has lasted so long is that it merely suggested issues without addressing them directly. Okay the mortality was full on, but the other issues; identity, replication, authenticity, environment, genetics, religion, policing, animals, law etc., they were all part of the tapestry. If there is a sequel/prequel, it will all be qualified and declared. Which will undermine the opaque beauty of what he did in ’82.

    (BTW, I really like the way you leave us the option of an edit!)

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon