It’s hard enough for a director to make one piece of landmark cinema in a specific genre, let alone two. But that’s what Ridley Scott did with Alien and Blade Runner, both of which are now considered bona fide classics. Scott finally got to make a sequel (of sorts) to the former with Prometheus a few years ago, and around the same time the filmmaker also announced that he had a desire to make a Blade Runner sequel as well, with screenwriter Hampton Fancher returning to pen the screenplay.
Development on the sci-fi follow-up continued in the background for a few years, until it was announced that Scott was no longer planning on directing the film-though he found an incredibly talented filmmaker to sign on in his stead: Denis Villeneuve. Between Incendies, Prisoners, Enemy, and now the impeccable thriller Sicario, Villeneuve has proven to be an exciting, unique talent working in the film world today, and the prospect of the notoriously bleak filmmaker taking on the world of Blade Runner-with cinematographer Roger Deakins in tow no less-was incredibly enticing.
So when Steve sat down with Villeneuve recently at the Toronto International Film Festival to talk about Sicario, he also took the time to ask the filmmaker about Blade Runner 2. Villeneuve reiterated that Harrison Ford is starring in the project, and revealed that Ford was set before Villeneuve became involved:
“To be very honest with you, Harrison was part of the project before I arrived. He was attached to the project right from the start with Ridley. I met him and he’s honestly one of the nicest human beings I’ve met and is one of my favorite actors of all time, so for me it’s a lot of pleasure.”
Speaking of pressure, Villeneuve admitted that he was initially hesitant to take on such an iconic property:
“It’s more than nervous, it’s a deep fear. I mean 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.’”
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5 сен 2024
