Scott to direct new Blade Runner

The 73-year-old director and producer last year directed Robin Hood, and just wrapped up Prometheus.

LOS ANGELES:


Nearly 30 years after making the sci-fi cult classic Blade Runner, British director Ridley Scott has agreed to direct a new installment, the producers said on Thursday.


The new Blade Runner, produced by Alcon Entertainment, will not be a remake but rather a follow-up or a prequel to the original. Scott has yet to decide between the two options, the company said in a statement.

“It would be a gross understatement to say that we are elated that Ridley Scott will shepherd this iconic story into a new, exciting direction,” said producers Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson.

“We are huge fans of Ridley’s and of the original Blade Runner. This is once in a lifetime project for us,” they added.


No casting decisions have been made as of yet, and no release date has been fixed.

Blade Runner — which starred Harrison Ford as a police officer forced out of retirement to hunt for humanoid robots in Los Angeles in 2019 — debuted in US theaters in 1982.

The film originally opened to disappointing box office sales, but over time it became a cult classic.

Three years after Alien, it solidified Scott as a major talent in the science-fiction genre.

The 73-year-old director and producer last year directed Robin Hood, and just wrapped up Prometheus with Charlize Theron, which will come out in 2012.



Published in The Express Tribune, August 21st, 2011.
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