A sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1982 science fiction classic Blade Runner has been in the works for more than a year now, and the conspicuous lack of updates has led to speculation that the project might never materialize. Fans hoping it does happen, however, received a ray of hope this week in the form of an announcement that the producers of the project have an offer out to Harrison Ford to reprise his role from the original film for the sequel.
According to Alcon Entertainment, an offer has been made to Ford to return as replicant-hunter Rick Deckard for a Blade Runner sequel set several decades after the events of the original film. The original film’s screenwriter, Hampton Fancher, is co-writing the script for the sequel with Green Lantern screenwriter Michael Green. Scott is expected to direct the film.
“We believe that Hampton Fancher and Michael Green have crafted with Ridley Scott an extraordinary sequel to one of the greatest films of all time,” said Alcon CEOs Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson in an official statement. “We would be honored, and we are hopeful, that Harrison will be part of our project.”
It’s worth noting that back in October 2012, Scott said the following of the Blade Runner sequel: “We have a very good take on it. And we’ll definitely be featuring a female protagonist.”
Still, it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that Scott is looking to return to the world of Blade Runner more than 30 years after the original film hit theaters, given the three-decade (and then some) gap between 1979’s Alien and his 2012 prequel to that film, Prometheus. Both Alien and Blade Runner are widely regarded as some of the greatest sci-fi films ever made, with the latter nominated for two Academy Awards and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 1993.
