OFF-WORLD NEWS UPDATE for February 2012

Keeping you up to date on all things Blade Runner

Welcome to another edition of the OFF-WORLD NEWS UPDATE. It's been an active month on the Blade Runner gossip front, as the false rumours of Harrison Ford reprising his role as Deckard in the Blade Runner sequel and the assault on Sean Young at the Governors Ball floods the twittersphere. And we are still waiting on more official news regarding the planned Blade Runner sequel.

Now for the news.

Blade Runner Franchise Co-Owner Thunderbird Films Attracts New Funding for Major Expansion

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - Feb. 29, 2012) - Setting a new course with a focus on growing its television operations, Thunderbird Films, which owns a 50 percent stake in the Blade Runner film franchise, announced today Canadian businessman Frank Giustra has made a significant investment in the company to become one of its major shareholders. In the coming months, Thunderbird will unveil a new name that will better reflect its various operations as the company moves to diversify and expand its television business activities.

More HERE.

Meet the Guys Behind the New 'Blade Runner' Movie

Backed by FedEx‘s Fred Smith, Alcon Entertainment made millions in Hollywood’s midbudget no-mans-land. Now they’re reinventing blockbuster economics.

This article appears in the March 12, 2012 issue of Forbes Magazine, HERE.

Ridley Scott Weighs in on Blade Runner Project

There's been a bit of a back and forth the past few days regarding a recent rumor that suggested Harrison Ford was in talks to return to the world of Blade Runner for Ridley Scott's upcoming untitled project. On Monday, Alcon Entertainment producer Andrew Kosove fiercely denied the rumors. Now, EW has spoken with Scott himself who confirms that, while Ford is certainly not in talks, he'd be happy to work with the actor again depending on what shape the script takes. More HERE.

KippleZone has revamped its' fanfiction page!

The site was created to present fanfiction inspired by the Philip K. Dick novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and the Ridley Scott film, Blade Runner. It features a new fanfiction story, titled Tomorrow Started, by C.A. Chicoine. To visit the new KippleZone Fanfiction Library, click HERE.

Articles:

• CITYSPEAK Revisited -- The story behind the first Blade Runner fanzine.
• DECONSTRUCTING CINEMA: BLADE RUNNER
• The Voight-Kampff Self-Test: Rethinking Blade Runner
• 5 Reasons Why a Blade Runner Sequel Would Be A Bad Idea
• Behold, Blade Runner à la LEGO
• Let's Play Blade Runner -- SplitScreen's Westwood's Blade Runner computer game walk-through.
• Impressive Japanese "Blade Runner" Cosplay
• Ridley Scott's Blade Runner-sequel might be even further off than fans had hoped.

Blade Runner in 60 Seconds

Blade Runner VK Video monitor screen graphic

Blade Runner Esper small video monitor display graphic

Blade Runner Offworld Blimp Update

Voight-Kampff Machine - CGI

Blade Runner Poster Art

Remember to follow @OffWorldNews on Twitter to receive these and other Blade Runner related news items, (including movie showings, specials, and auction items not featured in this newsletter), as it comes in.

Have a better one!

~ Kipple

CITYSPEAK: Revisited

KippleZone is proud to present another Blade Runner exclusive!

CITYSPEAK Revisited: The story behind the first Blade Runner fanzine.

CITYSPEAK is an integral part of Blade Runner fandom history. It was a fanzine that spearheaded the Blade Runner fandom long before the movie achieved its cult status.

CITYSPEAK represents an early generation of fanfiction writers before the advent of the World Wide Web. They'd meet in person, talk over the telephone, and send letters via the post. It was an underground fannish activity that produced usually no more than a hundred copies of each issue, and was spread primarily by word of mouth or through a friend of a friend.

First released in December of 1982–while the movie was still in theatres–the fanzine would only produce three issues until CITYSPEAK editor Sara Campbell’s untimely death. The last issue–the Special Edition–was published posthumously.

Back in 2007, Andrew Pokon, a Blade Runner fan propmaker and collector, sent me a copy of the first CITYSPEAK issue. And it blew my mind. I then embarked on an investigative journey to learn all that I could about the fanzine and the people behind it.

It is tempting to speculate how far Sara Campbell could have gone with her writing career. At present, she is known best for her articles, stories and poetry on Blade Runner. And I believe that she would have wanted the CITYSPEAK issues to be freely available over the internet.

As she duly noted in the first issue, “CITYSPEAK is an amateur, non-profit publication." It would be of disservice to the Blade Runner fandom–let alone to the writers–if the stories, poems, and articles in this fanzine were to remain in the storage bins of the privileged few. So, I'd like KippleZone to be the CITYSPEAK athenaeum–a bookshelf containing the fanzine issues, the work of its contributors, and a resource free to all.

The article features an interview with Eric Larson, and some words from Anne Elizabeth Zeek and Rosemary Edghill.

This CITYSPEAK revisit is far from being complete. I’ve only the first issue to share and discuss at this time. So, consider this a work in progress–CITYSPEAK Revisited 1.0. As more is learned, it’ll be added to the website. And all updates will be posted via the OFF-WORLD NEWS.

If anything, this article has raised more questions than answers. Hopefully this will spur those in the know to come forth and share the remaining issues of CITYSPEAK–an integral part of Blade Runner fandom history–with the rest of us.

Have a better one!

~ Kipple

Link to article: CITYSPEAK Revisited