In 1978, Hampton Fancher and Brian Kelly approached
producer Michael Deeley with the idea of turning Philip K. Dick's
novel, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" into a film.
Although he was skeptical at first, he got Fancher to write a screenplay.
The various drafts of the script, (under various titles), floated
around for a while until it got to Ridley Scott. Scott was finishing
off "Alien", so wasn't sure about doing more Science Fiction,
(he has stated in interview that the genre isn't important as long
as he can make something interesting of the story.) Evidently he
saw a good story and in 1980 signed up to make the film.
Scott and Fancher spent a lot of time working on the script and
although their work was inspired, they also had some fundamental
disagreements. Eventually Fancher said he couldn't do anything more
with it. Despite being close to filming, Scott brought in David
Peoples. His initial reaction was that it was already a great script,
but somehow he managed to move it forward to give Scott more of
what he wanted. The "final" script was created by Scott
by putting together parts of various of the previous versions without
either scriptwriter being present! However, we can say the script
is a combined effort from Fancher and Peoples, influenced by Scott.
Some further tweaks were needed during filming itself and Peoples
was no longer available so Fancher came back to do that. Note that
two of the earlier scripts (July 24, 1980 and February 23, 1981)
are available on this site on the Scripts
page.
Michael Deeley
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Michael Deeley put together the financing for the movie. Early
interest from Filmways Pictures disappeared as estimated costs rose,
(although peanuts compared to today's budgets), but this was partly
because Filmways were having financial troubles anyway. The final
backers were The Ladd Corporation, Sir Run Run Shaw and Tandem Productions.
Total raised was $21.5 million, split almost evenly between the
three. Except Tandem were the bond guarantors and owned more rights.
What this means is that when the cost on the film rose to $30 million,
Tandem paid the extra, but this allowed them to exercise the right
to take over the picture. It seems Tandem were also influential
in getting the film made at Burbank in L.A. instead of being made
in England.
There were numerous problems during filming. Budget constraints
certainly didn't help. There were tensions on set, particularly
the well-known disagreements between Scott and Ford about the Deckard
character. Scott even ended up finishing the film after having been
fired! Producer intervention also had a significant effect on the
film content beyond the initial cuts during filming. The voiceover,
the deletion of the unicorn scene and the tacked on happy ending
being the most obvious producer influences.
Who are the Blade Runner Partnership?
Bud Yorkin
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They are the people holding the rights to the movie. If ever a
sequel is to be made, they're the (only) ones who can make it happen.
Who are they? They are the two guys from Tandem Productions -
Jerry Perenchio
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Jerry Perenchio and Bud Yorkin. Bud Yorkin is a significant producer
and is also behind a number of successful TV series. Jerry is a
media mogul billionaire.
Unfortunately, they never seemed very eager to make a Blade Runner
2 happen. Ridley Scott once stated he would have made a sequel years
ago, if only the BR Partnership would have allowed it. They do not
like Sir Ridley Scott even now and don't seem to be able to get
over it. As for the "legal difficulties" with the Blade
Runner Special Edition DVD set...
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