Ridley Scott didn’t do the first sequel to his breakthrough hit Alien. In fact he didn’t do any sequels until 2001’s Hannibal, nor did he return to the Alien franchise until the spinoff prequel Prometheus, which only briefly featured a Xenamorph. Another sequel he didn’t do? Blade Runner 2049, the belated follow-up to his third and to some finest feature. That honor went to future Dune maven Denis Villeneuve, who turned in an even spacier, even slower sci-fi downer. Now the always busy Scott is regretting he didn’t carve out some time to do that himself.
In a recent interview with Empire (as caught by Deadline), Scott reflected on how he had to step down from the project due to scheduling issues.
“I shouldn’t have had to make that decision,” Scott said. “But I had to. I should have done Blade Runner 2.”
But Scott isn’t done with the Blade Runner franchise. There’s a forthcoming Amazon series, called (that’s right) Blade Runner 2099.
“I’m one of the producers,” he said. “It’s all set years on. To me, it circles the idea of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.”
Again, Scott is 85, older than even Martin Scorsese, though quite a bit younger than Clint Eastwood, all of whom are still cranking them out. It’s genuinely impressive! Scott was born in the late ‘30s and he’s still making epics about Napoleon and a belated sequel to Gladiator that does not star Russell Crowe, if people could please stop asking him about it.
