Thirty years ago, Ridley Scott kickstarted his career with Alien and Blade Runner, a dark pair of weird-future genre flicks that redefined the whole visual grammar of big-screen science-fiction. This summer, Scott is releasing Prometheus, the mysterious semi-prequel to Alien. Now, after many months of rumor-mongering, it looks like the director will be making a return trip to his other sci-fi classic. In a press release, Alcon Entertainment announced that Hampton Fancher, one of the two credited writers on the original Blade Runner, is planning to reunite with Scott to work on a sequel to the movie.
The project is in very, very early stages. The press release claims Fancher is in talks, and storywise, the filmmakers only offer that the new movie would be set some years after the first film concluded. (Translation: Harrison Ford will probably not make an appearance.) Fancher, who has only written two produced screenplays since Blade Runner, wrote the films original draft back in the late 70s. The screenplay was later rewritten by David Peoples, who also wrote Unforgiven and Twelve Monkeys.
Keep in mind: Ridley Scott typically has a couple dozen projects in the pipeline remember Futuristic Monopoly? so its a fair bet that Blade Runner 2 is still years away, if it ever happens at all. And even if theyve got a screenwriter, a director, and a production company, theyre still missing one essential link int he chain: Can they lock down Vangelis?
