‘Blade Runner’ Follow-Up Officially A Sequel, Original Writer Hampton Fancher Developing Story With Ridley Scott

Oliver Lyttelton
May 17, 2012

We pretty much covered this in the last couple of days, but it's possible we buried the lead a little, plus a press release is out, so it's now official: with "Prometheus" nearly upon us, Ridley Scott has started to seriously work towards his other sci-fi follow up, the continuation of "Blade Runner" that was originally announced last summer. A couple of details have been confirmed via a press release from Alcon Entertainment, among them that Scott is going right back to the well when it comes to nailing down the story for his new replicant-themed picture.

Namely, Hampton Fancher, who wrote the original draft of "Blade Runner," has been hired to develop the story for the project. This has been in the works for a while; yesterday we reported that Scott had met with the screenwriter (who was also behind underrated Owen Wilson film "The Minus Man"), and said he still "talked the talk," and now his expertise has officially been enlisted on the film, although the release is careful to say that he's not writing the screenplay: it seems like he'll knock out ideas with Scott, before another writer does the nuts and bolts of the project.

Also re-confirmed: the film will be a sequel, rather than a prequel, or a "Prometheus"-style side story, to the original film, taking place 'some years' after the sneaking-up-ever-closer 2019 setting of the original. That doesn't mean that you should count on an appearance from Deckard (Harrison Ford) — as we reported earlier, Scott says that the new film will have a female protagonist. Anyway, we're excited to see the film moving forward, and dearly hope that Fancher and the director come up with some ideas that honor the original, while doing something new with the material.

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