Speaking to Collider at the Toronto Film Festival where he’s showcasing his latest movie Sicario, director Denis Villeneuve has been discussing the “huge challenge” of his next project – the sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1982 sci-fi classic Blade Runner.
“When I heard that Ridley Scott wanted to do another movie in the Blade Runner universe, at first my reaction was that it’s a fantastic idea, but it may be a very bad idea. I’m among the hardcore fans of Blade Runner. Blade Runner is one of my favorite movies of all time. It’s a movie that is linked with my love and passion for cinema. I’m coming from a small town in Quebec where, at that time, there was no internet and the way to be in contact with movies were those American fan magazines like Fantastic Films and Starlog and I still remember the shock, the impact of seeing the first frames, the first pictures coming out of Blade Runner. Me and my friends were in awe, so excited and the movie was such a strong cinematic experience. A new way of seeing sci-fi.
“For me it’s like a monument. So when I realized one day that they put in front of me the Blade Runner project screen play, for me I was very moved to have this honor to read the screenplay, but I accepted to do it because I felt that Hampton Fancher, Ridely Scott and Michael Green did a fantastic job on the screenplay. It’s a very powerful screenplay. And I felt that it made sense to me and I had the Ridley Scott blessing. But you ask if I hesitated. I hesitated massively. It took me a lot of time to say yes. Not because I didn’t believe in it, because I was like ‘Who am I to dare to touch that?’ And at the same there’s a part of me that said, ‘I’m a hardcore fan, I don’t want to fuck that up.
“It’s a huge challenge, because you don’t want to cut and paste, otherwise why [do it]? And at the same time you have to respect what was done, so you have to find the right equilibrium between being faithful to the first one and bringing something new at the same time that will make sense to the Blade Runner universe. I’m totally aware of the huge challenge. It’s a risk I know that every single fan who walks into the theater will walk in with a baseball bat. I’m aware of that and I respect that, and it’s okay with me because it’s art. Art is risk, and I have to take risks. It’s gonna be the biggest risk of my life but I’m okay with that. For me it’s very exciting… It’s just so inspiring, I’m so inspired. I’ve been dreaming to do sci-fi since I was 10 years old, and I said ‘no’ to a lot of sequels—I couldn’t say ‘no’ to Blade Runner. I love it to much, so I said, ‘Alright fuck it, I will do it and give everything I have to make it great.’”
Blade Runner 2 has been written by Hampton Fancher (co-writer of the original) and Michael Green (Green Lantern), with Ridley Scott producin and Harrison Ford confirmed as reprising the role of Rick Deckard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng&v=qvTY7eXXIMg
Originally published September 12, 2015. Updated April 13, 2018.
