Ridley Scott Says New BLADE RUNNER Will Be His Next Movie and “It’s Liable to Be a Sequel”

Back in August, we reported the surprising news that director Ridley Scott would be returning to the world of his 1982 film Blade Runner although we didn’t know if the new movie would be a sequel, prequel, or a spin-off.  There was also the question of where the movie would fall into Scott’s massive line-up of potential projects.  In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal [via Badass Digest], Scott offered some brief updates on the project.  He says the new Blade Runner will be his next film and it “is liable to be a sequel,” but that it will feature none of the original cast or even the character of Deckard.  However, he also says “we’re quite a long way in, actually,” even though he’s still in the process of finding a writer “that might be able to help me deliver.”  To me that sounds like he’s mapped out an outline and certain beats he wants to hit, but he’s looking for someone to help fill in the gaps.

Hit the jump for a rundown of what we know so far about the project, including a timetable for how soon it would hit theaters.

When the project was first announced, Alcon Entertainment producer Andrew Kosgrove weighed in on the timetable for the film. He said the soonest he could envision filming beginning would be 2013, giving Scott 18 months to hire a writer, pen the script, fill out the cast, and get going on pre-production. Given Scott’s recent comments about it being his next project after Prometheus, this sounds about spot-on. Prometheus opens in June of 2012, giving Scott ample time free from Prometheus to put some elbow grease into the project. For now, Scott can put a writer on the pic while he finishes up post-production on Prometheus.

Kosgrove also stated that it was highly unlikely that Harrison Ford would be returning, which is confirmed by today’s comments from Scott. This new Blade Runner may end up being a sequel in the loosest sense of the word. Kosgrove said that this new film is “a total reinvention” and will be created “as separately as possible” from the original pic. It’s highly likely that it may simply take place in the same universe as the original Blade Runner, but with completely different characters (which is what Prometheus’ connection to Alien is rumored to be). It’ll be a while before we find out for sure, but at least we now have a firm timetable for the new Blade Runner.