Movies
Here’s Another Reason to Get Excited For the ‘Blade Runner’ Sequel
Ridley Scott. Check. Harrison Ford. Check. Ryan Gosling. Check. Denis Villeneuve. Yup, check.
There’s already enough reasons to be excited for Blade Runner 2, the follow up to Scott’s 1982 sci-fi masterpiece that Warner Bros will release on January 12, 2018.
Here’s another: Robin Wright has joined in an undisclosed role.
Wright, who could be an android or a human character, is best remembered as the beauty in The Princess Bride. Now, she’s playing the powerful and gorgeous First Lady in Netflix’s blockbuster series “House of Cards,” overshadowing the dynamite acting prowess of Kevin Spacey.
Hampton Fancher (co-writer of the original) and Michael Green have written the original Blade Runner screenplay based on an idea by Fancher and Ridley Scott. The story takes place several decades after the conclusion of the 1982 original.
The previous release confirmed plans to produce prequels and sequels to the iconic science-fiction thriller.
Principal photography on Villenueve’s new Blade Runner film is scheduled to begin this July.
Released in 1982 by Warner Bros. Pictures, Blade Runner was adapted by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples from Philip K. Dick’s novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” and was directed by Ridley Scott, following his landmark film, Alien. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards (Best Visual Effects, and Best Art Direction) and is now regarded by media and cineastes as one of the greatest movies of all time and the defining vision of the cyberpunk genre.
In 1993, Blade Runner was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” The film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 1993 and is frequently taught in university courses. In 2007, it was named the 2nd most visually influential film of all time by the Visual Effects Society.
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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