Once again proving that Hollywood has indeed run out of original ideas and instead is looking to the past to try and generate something at least half-way decent, the production company behind such films as The Blind Side and The Book of Eli has now set its sights on a prequel and sequel to Ridley Scott’s classic 1982 sci-fi film Blade Runner.
The announcement came today from Alcon Entertainment, who are currently negotiating to secure the rights to the Blade Runner franchise from producer-director Bud Yorkin, who currently holds them. If Alcon is successful (and they probably will be) their franchise rights would be all-inclusive, but exclude rights to remake the original. Well, at least that’s something, right? Dodged that bullet.
The company’s co-founders and co-Chief Executive Officers Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove are, as you may expect, pretty excited about the prospect of getting their hands on Blade Runner.
“We are honored and excited to be in business with Bud Yorkin. This is a major acquisition for our company, and a personal favorite film for both of us. We recognize the responsibility we have to do justice to the memory of the original with any prequel or sequel we produce. We have long-term goals for the franchise, and are exploring multi-platform concepts, not just limiting ourselves to one medium only.”
Okay, they seem to talk the talk at least. But, of course, this is Hollywood and that could just be fan-service. Which, let’s face it, it probably is. All I can say after hearing about this is thank goodness they can’t do a remake of the original film. At least we will always have that.
Click through if you want to read the full press release.
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