‘It’s just epic’
Bringing ‘Blade Runner’ back to life after 35 years
It was dawn on the set of “Blade Runner 2049’’ and Harrison Ford and director Denis Villeneuve were swimming back to the shore together after an all-night shoot in a milliongallon water tank.
It was cold in the water. It was cold outside. And it was just one night out of a dozen that they’d be spending their sleeping hours soaking wet to try to execute a set piece that even Ridley Scott thought too ambitious.
“What we are doing now is insane,’’ Ford told Villeneuve. “It’s insane.’’
He might as well have been talking about the whole project, which is, by one metric, a $150-million art house sequel to a 35-year-old sci-fi film that flopped on release.
In 1982, Ridley Scott’s neonoir dystopian mind-bender based on Philip K. Dick’s story “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’’ made a mere $27.6 million on a $28-million budget. For comparison, the year’s top film, “E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial’’ made $359.2 million.
During the troubled production, Ford and Scott famously disagreed on even the nature of Ford’s character Rick Deckard and whether or not he was a “Replicant’’ (aka an android), and neither liked the theatrical release which included a tacked on happy ending and a forced voiceover narration.
Then came all those other versions. Seven are said to exist, five are still available. Both Ford and Villeneuve like “The Final Cut,’’ from 2007, best.
And yet “Blade Runner’’ not only survived those rocky origins but transcended them to become a widely regarded sci-fi classic.
Still, the prospect for a sequel seemed dubious at best, especially when one of the primary rights holders nixed any attempt to start a franchise, fearful that someone might attempt to remake “Blade Runner.’’
It took the late producer Bud Yorkin and his wife Cynthia Sikes 12 years to persuade him otherwise.
“I had this notion that there was an answer for a relevant sequel,’’ Ridley Scott told the AP earlier this year. “Not just grunge and gloom and rain and dark, but a real story.’’
Scott worked for nearly two years on the story with Hampton Fancher and Michael Green with the intention to direct, but instead diverted his attentions to “Alien: Covenant.’’
The producers from Alcon Entertainment then approached Denis Villeneuve, who they’d worked with on “Prisoners,’’ and who would later gain an Oscar nomination for “Arrival.’’
With Ridley Scott’s blessing, the promise of total creative freedom, Ford set to reprise his role and Ryan Gosling on board to co-star as a new LAPD officer, Villeneuve agreed to do it and set off on the “mad’’ task of making a worthy sequel to “Blade Runner.’’
He had legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins at his side from “day zero’’ helping to craft the look and feel of the film from the storyboard stage on.