Blade Runner ~ The Musical

A new life awaits you ...

Alcon Entertainment had acquired film, television and ancillary franchise rights to produce prequels and sequels to the iconic 1982 science-fiction thriller Blade Runner. This, of course, has created quite a stir amongst fans of the film.

Alcon’s franchise rights would be all-inclusive, but exclude rights to remake the original. The Company, however, may produce projects based on situations introduced in the original film. The project would be distributed domestically by Warner Bros. International rights are yet to be determined.

Alcon Entertainment has stated: “We are honored and excited to be in business with Bud Yorkin. This is a major acquisition for our company, and a personal favorite film for both of us. We recognize the responsibility we have to do justice to the memory of the original with any prequel or sequel we produce. We have long-term goals for the franchise, and are exploring multi-platform concepts, not just limiting ourselves to one medium only.”

This offers a unique and limitless opportunity to explore the many possibilities for collaborations -- officially and legally -- between Alcon Entertainment and the many artists that have been inspired by this film.

The intersection of stage and film — the future of entertainment?

In an article written by Chris Conrad of the Mail Tribune, he writes how the film-to-stage experiment intrigues him. He mentioned a few movies that critics already consider "stagey", and then threw in his own picks. Among his picks was "Blade Runner".

The columnist wrote, “My heart would swell and burst if some intrepid director could bring Blade Runner to the stage.” He’s certainly passionate about his conviction with wanting this "science-fiction stage show".

And, I must say–personally–I think it would be an awesome endeavour. If done cleverly, it could very well be the next best thing. Of course, there will be those against such an idea, just as there are those against a re-make, sequel or prequel. But, this would be different.

I was fortunate enough to be involved in a project that came close to the idea of bringing Blade Runner to the stage. I wrote lyrics to the splendidly crafted music of Marco Spatuzzi. And it was performed live, along side the movie Blade Runner, in a production titled Blade Runner: The Rock Project.

Looking at some of the movies or television programs that have been adapted to musicals on Broadway might give you an idea of the possible success such a venture could have. Just to name a few; Little Shop of Horrors, The Producers and The Addams Family.

Is it the future of entertainment? For live entertainment, it certainly can be.

All the stage is an Off-world

In the BR-Rock Project, we presented a new way of viewing the neo-noir film Blade Runner. The idea was to translate, in music and in words, the over-industrialized; multi-ethnic; dehumanized; polluted environment; depiction of a dystopian future, with focus on the storyline, and the character's relationships and feelings.

The movie was projected on a screen accompanied with original music composed by Marco Spatuzzi, and performed by his group Memoria. It was rock oriented, but didn't neglect the ambiance of the cyberpunk film setting. The songs paired with the scenes, savoring every key element in the film. The music enhanced the vision, whilst the lyrics, written by C.A. Chicoine, reinforced the story.

In all, twenty-five songs (of which eight are instrumentals) were written for this production, spanning the entire length of the actual film. With some modifications, the musical numbers could be easily adapted to a Broadway-style musical.

To learn more about the project, and to listen to some of the songs, you may visit the website BladeRunnerRock for further information.

Bringing Blade Runner to the musical stage would not only deliver this epic story to a new audience, but it would also complement the Blade Runner franchise with class -- Broadway-style.

Samples from the set.

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MEMORIA ~ Merchants of Souls by BladeRunnerRock

Merchants of Souls is performed during the scene where Deckard weaves through the crowds of people at Animoid row with what he believes is a fish scale.

This is the only song that does not describe the feelings or thoughts of one of the characters in the movie. This one paints the scene of Animoid row, a section of the city where merchants sell artificial animals.

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Memoria ~ Looking Through the Eyes of a Child by BladeRunnerRock
Looking Through the Eyes of a Child is performed during the scene when Deckard brings Rachael back to his apartment after Deckards' encounter with Leon. At this point in the film, Rachael has come to terms with who she really is. The song is sung from her perspective.

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My Mind Lies by BladeRunnerRock
My Mind Lies is performed at the end of the film. It is sung from the perspective of Deckard. He is expressing his feelings to Rachael.

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Contact: CAChicoine@Satellite2Music.com

WHY BLADE RUNNER DOESN'T NEED A SEQUEL

Yes, it's that time again. Time to start talking Blade Runner 2. Time to resurrect the chatter that was already in full flow by the summer of 1983, when Ridley Scott's poorly-received but luminal Philip K. Dick adaptation simply wouldn't leave the late night circuit, and stayed on even when The Exorcist and The Rocky Horror Picture Show were starting to look tired to drunken students; that reached fever pitch in the early 1990s with the release of the controversial but much-favoured director's cut, first in cinemas and then as a big hit on VHS rental and keepers. That director Scott himself never let entirely die over the years, always citing rights issues with the estate of Philip K. Dick as the impediment to any real consideration of a sequel.

Now Book Of Eli production company Alcon is apparently securing the rightsto movie and TV prequels and sequels to the 1982 cult SF noir thriller with original producer Bud Yorkin, amongst others. Whatever you think of this, be thankful that the rights to actually remake Blade Runner itself are not on the table in this new deal.

Alcon's Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove released the statement: “We are honored and excited to be in business with Bud Yorkin. This is a major acquisition for our company, and a personal favorite film for both of us. We recognize the responsibility we have to do justice to the memory of the original with any prequel or sequel we produce. We have long-term goals for the franchise, and are exploring multi-platform concepts, not just limiting ourselves to one medium only”. Ironically, Blade Runner is one of the few SF movies to have spawned a pretty good game for its time, but that's not to discount the possibilities of a far more elaborate rendering of the world. But once you're talking about, er, dicking with the original by extending its story into new episodes, that's something else again.

It's perhaps ironic that a movie about cloning has had no sequel, even in this most sequel-obsessed of times, but I can't help but wonder what we have been saved from by the Terry Nation-style stubbornness of the PKD estate. Certainly CGI was not ready during most of the 1990s to handle the rich visual tapestry that Ridley Scott weaved in the 1982 original with VFX wizard Doug Trumbull. By the time The Fifth Element came out, with its own take on urban dystopia, the state of the art was perhaps getting there, but still not quite able to reproduce Trumbull's lavish and elaborate smoke-filled visuals.

Now, four years after Ridley Scott's most vehement promise to try and come up with a sequel, we are apparently getting near again to a return to the smog-filled neon dreamland of Hades 2019 (that's eight years to go, Ford - get to work!). The VFX-capability is there for new Blade Runner - but computers can't solve the bigger problems.

Perhaps, as with the previous abandoned Blade Runner sequel, K. W. Jeter's three 1990s sequel novels may furnish the essential element - a story that leads on from the last. But who could credibly play the same roles? Could anyone accept a recast at this stage? Of the actors in the original, two were playing 'older' - William Sanderson now looks almost exactly like the J. F. Sebastian of Blade Runner. And his death was off-screen...

Likewise James Hong is also now about the age that he was made up to play in 1982, and, like Sebastian, only had an implied demise. But the lean and moody version of Edward James Olmos is no more, whilst Daryl Hannah and Harrison Ford clearly have also lived more than five years since the original; and Sean isn't nearly as young as she once was. Oddly enough, the ever-buoyant Joanna Cassidy is probably nearest to credible in this respect - dead though her character most certainly is in Blade Runner - and even participated in reshoots for the 2008 Blu-ray release of the film (the long overdue amendment of the appalling stunt-double in Zhora's 'window-death' scene).

But all this is academic.

But do you really want to see a sequel to Blade Runner? Really? Is the entire film not an unrepeatable moment sliced from movie history, a dark fairy tale with a semi-unhappy ending (from the director's cut onwards) that really doesn't need any further retconning decades after the fact? What about a sequel toCasablanca? Because if 2001: A Space Odyssey is sci-fi cinema's Citizen Kane, then Blade Runner is its Casablanca. Isn't it enough that 'We'll always have Hades'..? Perhaps Tyrell himself explains better than anyone why a sequel is a bad idea...

I wouldn't necessarily be so averse to seeing a TV sidequel series; the large cast and brooding cast of Blade Runner and the cross-referencing of stories and character arcs is very much in tune with SF TV in the post-Galactica reboot era. But even there, what can you do about the visuals? Generate and repeat stock shots? Cut down on them? Or make the Blade Runner TV show the riskiest and most expensive SF venture in decades? That said, just as the original movie was an easy canvas for in-program marketing, the same environment would offer the same cost-defraying opportunities.

But personally, I wouldn't want any of the characters from the original movie revisited; recasting would be kind of sad, like Woody Allen trying to make the 'lobster' gag work a second time in Annie Hall. There must be more than a million stories in the naked city of Los Angeles 2019, even if the population is thinning out to the colonies, and that's really the only place to go in breathing new life into - God, I don't even want to say it in association with Blade Runner - with the 'franchise'.

Source:

http://www.shadowlocked.com/201103031568/news/why-blade-runner-doesnt-need-a-sequel.html

Blade Runner Prequels, Sequels Coming

Press Release from Alcon Entertainment

By Rick DeMott | Thursday, March 3, 2011 | AWN News

Posted In | News Categories: Business, CG, Films, Visual Effects | Geographic Region: All | Site Categories: Business, CG, Films, Visual Effects

LOS ANGELES, CA, MARCH 3, 2011—Warner Bros-based financing and production company Alcon Entertainment (“The Blind Side,” “The Book of Eli”) co-founders and co-Chief Executive Officers Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove, in the most significant property acquisition negotiations in the Company’s 13-year history, are in final discussions to secure film, television and ancillary franchise rights to produce prequels and sequels to the iconic 1982 science-fiction thriller “Blade Runner.”

Alcon is negotiating to secure the rights from producer-director Bud Yorkin, who will serve as producer on “Blade Runner” along with Kosove and Johnson. Cynthia Sikes Yorkin will co-produce. Frank Giustra and Tim Gamble, CEO’s of Thunderbird Films, will serve as executive producers.

Alcon’s franchise rights would be all-inclusive, but exclude rights to remake the original. The Company, however, may produce projects based on situations introduced in the original film. The project would be distributed domestically by Warner Bros. International rights are yet to be determined.

Johnson and Kosove stated: “We are honored and excited to be in business with Bud Yorkin. This is a major acquisition for our company, and a personal favorite film for both of us. We recognize the responsibility we have to do justice to the memory of the original with any prequel or sequel we produce. We have long-term goals for the franchise, and are exploring multi-platform concepts, not just limiting ourselves to one medium only.”

Among its many distinctions, “Blade Runner” has been singled out as one of the greatest movies of all time by countless polls and media outlets, and overwhelmingly as the greatest science-fiction film of all time by a majority of genre publications.

Released by Warner Bros. almost 30 years ago, "Blade Runner" was adapted by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples from Philip K. Dick's novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" and directed by Ridley Scott following his landmark “Alien.” The film was nominated for two Academy Awards (Best Visual Effects, and Best Art Direction).

“Blade Runner” was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress 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.

Alcon’s COO Scott Parish and head of business affairs David Fierson are negotiating on behalf of the Company.