Harrison Ford’s Film ‘Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?’ Better Known As ‘Blade Runner’ Set For 2016 Production
Harrison Ford’s Film ‘Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?’ Better Known As ‘Blade Runner’ Set For 2016 Production
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February 27, 2015
Harrison Ford’s Film ‘Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?’ Better Known As ‘Blade Runner’ Set For 2016 Production
Sarah Field
Harrison Ford made news Thursday for the confirmed revival of one of his iconic characters: Rick Deckard from Blade Runner. Ford is set to appear in a sequel to the 1982 sci-fi classic, this time under the direction of Denis Villeneuve. Ridley Scott will executive produce.
The Los Angeles Times noted Ford is also starring in the upcoming Star Wars: The Force Awakens film as Han Solo, due out next year. Ford first starred as Solo in 1977 when the George Lucas-penned classic hit theaters. He would do two more Star Wars films in the 1980s while he had a string of hits with the Indiana Jones franchise.
In addition to bringing back Deckard and Solo, Ford returned to Indiana Jones in 2008 for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Ford apparently does not shy away from returning to his old hits.
Blade Runner followed Deckard, an L.A. cop who pursued androids. The movie was set in 2019. It also starred Rutger Hauer, Sean Young and Daryl Hannah. The new movie will take place many years after the first film’s timeframe.
Scott, who directed the original Blade Runner told MTV News in December that the script for the sequel was ready and Harrison Ford was excited to star.
“I sent him this [script] and he said it’s the best thing he’s ever read. It’s very relevant to what happened in the first one.”
That first one was based on a novel by Philip K. Dick, whose prose was turned into a number of sci-fi films. A Time report on the occasion of Blade Runner‘s 30th anniversary listed such notable movies as Total Recall, Screamers, The Adjustment Bureau, Minority Report and A Scanner Darkly as all based on works by Dick.
The novel that would become Blade Runner was called Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. Dick read an early script for Blade Runner and approved although a primary theme in his novel, the “misfortune of animals,” according to Time, had been removed. Dick also spoke highly of an early cut of the film but died before the final version hit theaters.
The movie performed poorly at the U.S. box office in 1982 but eventually became a cult classic. Ridley Scott started talking about a revisit to Blade Runner in 2011.
Ford, 72, suffered an injury on-set last year while filming Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The highly anticipated film will also bring back Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill to reprise their classic Star Wars characters.
No release date has been set for the Blade Runner sequel.
[Harrison Ford image courtesy of Getty]