Blade Runner sequel and Prometheus update

05 December 2011

John Howell

Director Ridley Scott is about to return to science fiction in a significant way. He’s just finished filming the Alien inspired Prometheus due out June 2012, and earlier this year announced he was directing a Blade Runner follow up. What more could any science fiction fan ask for?

He revealed a few telling snippets about both projects when talking to The Wall Street Journal. Regarding the highly anticipated Blade Runner follow up, he said it will not be remake or a reboot. Scott said his new film is "liable to be a sequel" and that he’s searching for writers who can help him with the screenplay.

“I think I’m close to finding a writer that might be able to help me deliver. We’re quite a long way in, actually.”

He was asked if Harrison Ford's Deckard character would return and put that idea to rest quickly. The film will feature all new characters.

Blade Runner was based on Phillip K. Dick’s novel Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep? and the novel, like Scott's film, did not offer a romantic view of the future.

“That’s why I think I was so unpopular” when the film was released, Scott believed.

“Even though people think it’s a cool Philip Marlowe film with Deckard played by Harrison Ford...the film is very much about humanity.”

In a separate Wall Street Journal article, Scott revealed that he has just finished filming the science fiction thriller Prometheus. The film stars Noomi Rapace, Charlize Theron, Patrick Wilson and Michael Fassbender (Fassbender plays an android called David) and while set in the same universe with some of the same creatures as his classic horror science fiction film Alien (1979), it’s not a prequel. It's also in 3D and will undoubtably feature an astronomical number of special effects.

The screenplay was written by Damon Lindelof and Jon Spaihts.

“I think the reason why I haven’t attempted science fiction in a number of years is because I haven’t really come across a script that I really liked,” Scott said. “This developed and came out extremely well.”

According to the article, Scott said the central metaphor of Prometheus is about a “higher being” who challenges the gods, and the gods don’t want to give him fire.

“Fire is our first form of technology,” Scott said, and so by taking fire, the higher being is punished “in perpetuity in a horrible fashion” as in the story of the mythological god, Prometheus, who stole fire from Zeus and was bound to a rock with an eagle eternally devouring his liver.

He also revealed that the last eight minutes of the Prometheus story evolve into “a pretty good DNA of the Alien one.”

Scott said he was “a great believer in filming the real thing if you can" and did "a lot of building the real thing.” The “007″ stage at Pinewood Studios in the UK (one of the biggest in Europe) was used extensively.

I can’t wait for both films, but I think we’ll be seeing Prometheus a lot sooner than Blade Runner 2. We’ll keep you up to date when more gets released. You can find the offical Prometheus website here.

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