They don’t have a script, haven’t cast a star, and are still thinking about who to hire as a director. They don’t even know if it will be a prequel or a sequel (or if it’ll have voice-over narration). But Alcon Entertainment, producers of The Blind Side and The Book of Eli, have purchased the rights to make a movie based on the characters and settings of Blade Runner, the 1982 sci fi classic about a replicant-killing cop who falls for a fembot. “We have some ideas that we’re not in a position to discuss yet,” Andrew Kosove, Alcon’s co-CEO, teases to EW. “But from our point of view, the thematic core of the original movie — what does it mean to be a human being? — is even more relevant today than it was when the film came out. After all, we’re living in the industrial age of technology.” Kosove and his fellow CEO, Broderick Johnson, are partnering on the project with Bud Yorkin, one of the producers of the original film. “That picture turned out so well — it’s just been selected for preservation by the Library of Congress — that for a long time I was afraid to try to make another one,” Yorkin says. “But now seems like the perfect time. We just need to find the right writer and director.”
They could always try Ridley Scott, although it’s uncertain if the guy who made the original Blade Runner would even be interested. His rep have yet to return requests for comment, but he’s pretty busy right now making Prometheus, the sci-fi quasi-prequel to Alien starring Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender.
