Green Lantern Writer To Pen Blade Runner Sequel 326
First time accepted submitter MovieEnthusiast writes "Alcon Entertainment, the production company that own the rights to Blade Runner, have announced that the Blade Runner sequel will be re-written by Michael Green (The Green Lantern) and hinted at other possible Blade Runner spin-offs. From the press release: 'Writer Michael Green is in negotiations to do a rewrite of Alcon Entertainment's "Blade Runner" sequel penned by Hampton Fancher ("Blade Runner," "The Minus Man," "The Mighty Quinn") and to be directed by Ridley Scott. Fancher's original story/screenplay is set some years after the first film concluded.
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.
Green recently completed rewrites on "Robopocalypse" and Warners Bros "Gods and Kings."'"
No (Score:4, Insightful)
Let me guess, lots more action and 'plosions?
Don't (Score:5, Insightful)
Just leave them alone, please.
Re:A sequel after all this time? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:wtf? (Score:4, Insightful)
The movie was "alright" Really, as far as origin stories go... the basic plot wasn't too bad and it had all of the main elements an origin story needs. And let's face it, origin stories stink on camera... almost as a rule.
Though only head-scratcher is they started out-the-gate with Parallax. He's more of an end-boss type of villain instead of a tutorial-mission-boss.
I think it was more of a package-fail: a combination of directing / writing / etc.
I think the movie was "alright" but not great. And for something like Blade Runner... I'd want someone that had proven himself as awesome. This guy hasn't yet, though his work on "Kings" was quite superb.
Well, to me, (Score:2, Insightful)
Green Lantern was a great movie, from a technical viewpoint.
In that respect, I would say that both Superman Returns and Green Lantern are movies whch the special effects were done right and as such, can be considered technical successes.
In Green Lantern, I didn't mind the way they ported the ring / power battery technology into the movie, the CGI were decent, considering how one could envision a ring construct made of green light, but, just like Superman Returns, Green Lantern's writing and the story line had as many holes as you would find in a pasta strainer.
Re:BLEH (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hollywood is out of ideas (Score:4, Insightful)
Except by making a gratuitous sequel (or reboot) of a great movie, they usually manage to offend the fans of the original, plus since they seldom "get" what the appeal of the original is, they usually don't make a better sequel - thus turning off the younger fans that might have adopted the new version.
And of course, since the redo is big budget, they have to run it through the hands of a few writers to be sure its got the seal of approval that the backers want, and in the process anything good or quirky is ironed out and the script conforms to the cliches that worked in the past based on market research and analysis. Usually this means more Splosions.
Re:A sequel after all this time? (Score:4, Insightful)
Which one, The theatrical release, the directors cut, the sneak preview release, or any of the others. This movie has never been left the fuck alone.
Re:A sequel after all this time? (Score:2, Insightful)
I recommend they stick to only the Directors Cut and include a bandolier of joints with every copy
Re:Will they answer the question... (Score:4, Insightful)
I have a question – why would answering that question make a good movie?
Personally, I like the ambiguity. It still makes for an interesting conversation after all of these years – Unlike Han’s “Who shot first” question? My guess is that it would detract from the original – not add. Personally, I think that the should leave it like the original Matrix movie – No reason to do another one, even if the fans demand a sequel.
Re:BLEH (Score:4, Insightful)
As chance would have it, I'm actually right in the middle of reading this book!
While the general premise of the book is the same as the movie (androids/replicants being hunted by a bounty hunter/blade runner), there are already enough differences between the two (so far) that I can definitely see them diverging from each other to the point where they have "very little to do with" each other... or perhaps not.
It's been many years since I've seen Blade Runner, but the principal theme (or moral, or whatever) that I recall from the movie is the confusion/tension between human (or "life") and machine and the underlying themes of what it actually means to be "alive" vs being a mechanical automaton. In the movie, Deckard, a human (or so I recall. As I understand it, there exists a theory that he was actually a replicant...) spends all of his energy chasing down and retiring what we are led to believe are nothing more than machines, but at the end we (and him) discover that these so-called lifeless androids have lived more than he ever has. You are left wondering what the real difference is between being "alive" as a human or being "alive" as an android, especially since the androids, owing to their shorter lifespan, seemed to appreciate life more, and lived it more fully than their human counterparts (that go though life living like machines) do.
While the book (so far) has a lot of difference between it and the movie, and hasn't indicated that androids have an artificially shorter lifespan (like in the movie), it has already introduced some themes that set up confusion/tension between things that are "alive" vs ones that are artificial and mechanical. Therefore, like I said earlier, I can definitely see it finishing in the same way as the movie: with us questioning if there is a real difference, and wondering if the androids were actually more "human" and more "alive" than the humans themselves. If that's true, then I wouldn't really say that one had very little to do with the other.
One thing's for sure though; it's an interesting book, and regardless of how things turn out, I think that so far it's definitely worth reading.
Re:Does BR even rate having a sequel? Explain plea (Score:5, Insightful)
You were unlucky enough to see it at the wrong time of your life, with the wrong expectations. It might not be fixable.
It'll be diminished now because that vision of the dark futuristic city, mixing Japan-inspired neon with rain and grime, has been done to death. Also it played to our fears and anticipations in the 80s.
I think it's a great film though, which reads differently depending on your perspective. At one stage, I watched it and saw it as a meditation on fate, the passing of time and the nature of memories. That's explicit in Rutger Hauer's monologues, but also in other aspects of the film.
Then I watched it again more recently, and read it in a completely different way.
That's evidence of depth.
Re:BLEH (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:BLEH (Score:4, Insightful)
Did you even read/watch them? The setting is roughly the same and some characters share the same names. The similarity really ends there.
Re:A sequel after all this time? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or a prequel. We might even be able to see things we people wouldn't believe, Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.
We really need to commit those memories to celluloid before they're lost in time, like tears in rain
I'm also interested in seeing the baby spiders.
Re:BLEH (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the preponderance of evidence would point to the OP's conclusion. IMO, the majority of sequels suck anyway and trying to do a sequel/derivative of an awesome film like "Blade Runner" seems like a sure letdown.
I won't be prejudiced by the fact that it's not the original author. I'll just be very surprised (and very pleased) if they manage to produce something good.
Re:Does BR even rate having a sequel? Explain plea (Score:5, Insightful)
that vision of the dark futuristic city, mixing Japan-inspired neon with rain and grime, has been done to death.
The term you're looking for is Tech-noir.
At one stage, I watched it and saw it as a meditation on fate, the passing of time and the nature of memories
Like most of Dick's stories, it's a meditation on reality. What is real, what is not, how do you tell when all your evidence is subjective, and most importantly... does it actually matter?
As for which version of the movie is better, it's mostly a matter of taste. One has the voice-over narrative, which gives the movie a feeling reminiscent of the old "gum-shoe" detective movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood and helps move things along. The other does not, which gives it more of a drawn-out, brooding feeling... this is also the version with the "unicorn dream" which lends support to the idea that Deckard is also a Replicant.
As for the sequel, it's a shit movie. I can say that without it even being made or written. Why? Because the story has no sequel, that's part of the damn point of the thing. The original was about the characters, not the World. Dick really was a master at writing individual stories, he didn't write series and his stories are self-contained. Any time the plot contains an "open end" it's meant to be that way, and adding sequels or tying up "loose ends" actually detracts from the story.
I'm afraid that any attempt at a sequel or re-make will be just as much of a cluster-fuck as what they did to Total Recall.
Re:This does not inspire confidence in me (Score:5, Insightful)
I loved it.
But, being South African/British, it was not really a Hollywood movie, was it?