On Saturday, December 2, 2017, New York WinterCon in Queens, NY hosted a Blade Runner 35th Anniversary Reunion Panel featuring many of the cast members of the original Blade Runner film. Present at the con and panel were Rutger Hauer (Roy Batty), Sean Young (Rachael), William Sanderson (J.F. Sebastian), Joanna Cassidy (Zhora), and Kevin Thompson (Napoleon Bear).
Because NYWintercon set up their main stage in the middle of the convention floor, all of the noise taking place at the convention surrounds the stage, and so the audio can be tough to hear at times. Below are two videos of this panel. The first video has a better visual presentation. While the second video has a slightly better audio presentation. Take your pick.
Also at NYWintercon was Scott Pettersen. He is a freelance sculptor and painter. He is best known for his portrait sculptures, 1/6 limited art figures, and resin kits.
Some of the cast of Blade Runner posed with Scott Pettersen's figures of themselves at NY Wintercon 2017. He was happy to hear they all really liked the figures and were willing to take these great pics with them. Thanks to Frank Patz for the "precious photos"!
Welcome to another edition of the OFF-WORLD NEWS Digest.
In the news ...
Blade Runner 2049 Director Is Still Wrapping His Head Around Why It Underperformed. -- Blade Runner 2049 was a critical darling, getting a largely raving reception, but audiences didn’t seem to reciprocate. The movie had lackluster success, failing to bring in little more than half its budget domestically. And while it’s done better overseas, director Denis Villeneuve is struggling to understand why the movie was such a box office disappointment—though it could be history repeating itself. As Villeneuve said in a recent interview, "Because the first movie had the same fate. The original Blade Runner when it came out wasn’t a success, and through time became was it is today." More HERE.
Denis Villeneuve's Blade Runner 2049: masterpiece or flop? -- The Quebec director plays it cool in the face of the sequel's disappointing box office: “My job is to make movies, not sell movies.” More HERE.
“Blade Runner 2049” Could Lose Studio $80M -- Despite the critical acclaim, Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 notably underwhelmed at the box-office with an opening soft enough that theatrical exhibition stocks plummeted. Since then there’s been much debate about potential causes for the film’s failure from its long runtime, its marketing approach which played things very vague, and just the general opinion of the Blade Runner franchise which has always been a niche movie embraced by cinephiles as opposed to the public at large. Now, THR reports that Alcon Entertainment and the investors who put their money into the movie are set to lose as much as $80 million on the film. The project had a production budget of $155 million before marketing, which means it needed to earn $400 million worldwide to break even. At present, it stands at just over $240 million in box-office revenue. More HERE.
Alternate Studio Logo Treatment For Blade Runner 2049 Revealed -- Every movie starts with a handful of distributor and producer logos, and most of the time, they give you a few extra seconds to get comfortable before the film actually starts. However, every now and then filmmakers use that corporate branding as one more element to pull viewers into the world of their movie. And Denis Villeneuve accomplished that very thing with Blade Runner 2049. More HERE.
Blade Runner 2049 + Territory -- Tapped to create screen graphics for the sequel to Ridley Scott’s iconic film, Territory joined the art department in the very early stages of production. Website link HERE.
Blade Runner 2049 + Weta Workshop -- For Denis Villeneuve’s critically acclaimed follow-up to the 1982 cult classic, Weta Workshop was honoured to provide practical miniatures, selected cinematography, and concept design work. Retaining the physicality that made the original Blade Runner an iconic work of sci-fi cinema, the Weta Workshop crew hand-made enormous miniature sets which were then filmed by legendary cinematographer Alex Funke. In the Design Studio, the Workshop’s team of conceptual designers helped give shape to the director’s vision. Website link HERE.
Blade Runner: 2049 director reveals why he wanted to cast David Bowie -- Dennis Villeneuve had originally intended to cast Bowie in the role of villainous replicant creator Niander Wallace, before the role eventually went to Jared Leto after his death in January 2016. Now, he’s opened up on the original plan to secure Bowie for the film, and described how his otherworldly spirit made him perfect for the role. More HERE.
How Alcon Entertainment Hand-Delivered ‘Blade Runner 2049’ To Make A Dying Man’s Day -- "It’s easy to think of movie studios as vastly impersonal conglomerates, and all companies as quasi-automated entities incapable of making concessions to human dignity. Press four to speak to human. Even in this case, that was 95 percent of my experience — before I found Steve" [Steve Wegner at Alcon Entertainment, who had co-produced Blade Runner 2049]. Link to the article is HERE.
One Big Difference Between Making Blade Runner 2049 And Dune, According To Denis Villeneuve -- Few modern directors have a track record of high quality quite like Denis Villeneuve. Following his work on films like 2013's Prisoners, 2015's Sicario, last year's Arrival, and this year's release of Blade Runner 2049, he has proven that he can do great work in almost any universe. The next job on his plate is his remake of Dune, and according to Villeneuve, working in that world is notably different from Blade Runner because he has more of an opportunity to make it his own. More HERE.
Denis Villeneuve Responds to Criticism of ‘Blade Runner 2049’s Female Characters: ‘The World Is Not Kind on Women’ -- “I am very sensitive to how I portray women in movies. This is my ninth feature film and six of them have women in the lead role,” he says in a Vanity Fair interview. Among those are “Arrival,” which stars Amy Adams, and “Sicario,” with Emily Blunt in the lead. More HERE.
Denis Villeneuve On His Love Of Sci-Fi, Working With Ridley Scott On ‘Blade Runner 2049’ & Revisiting ‘Dune’ – Behind The Lens -- Article HERE.
Now for some articles, art, videos, podcasts, and some music!
If anyone has comments, feedback, or questions, please feel free to post them in the Comment section below. And if you'd like to contribute, or recommend Blade Runner-related art, music, video, podcast, or article, you may do so at Kipple@KippleZone.com.
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