20 facts you might not know about 'Blade Runner'

Philip K. Dıck is one of the most successful science-fiction novelists ever, and his work has been adapted on occasion. Blade Runner is based on a Dıck novel written in 1968 called Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? It’s a shame they didn’t use that title for the film, but we can understand the situation.

Martin Scorsese once considered adapting Dıck’s novel, though he never took the step to even option it. The first person to option Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was producer Herb Jaffe. The screenplay for that film was written by Robert Jaffe, Herb’s son. Dıck, for his part, hated Jaffe’s screenplay. 

Eventually, the screenplay that did get traction was written by Hampton Francher (David Peoples was brought on eventually for a rewrite, and both writers get credit). Ridley Scott was approached to direct, and he was hot off the heels of his breakthrough movie Alien. However, Scott wasn’t interested at first. He was working on an adaptation of Dune, but it was taking forever. Fed up, Scott left the Dune production and agreed to direct the Dıck adaptation.

The writer Alan E. Nourse wrote a novel in 1974 called The Bladerunner. William S. Burroughs would eventually write a screenplay treatment for it, which was released as a novella called “Blade Runner (a movie).” Scott liked the title, so producer Michael Deeley bought the rights to both books solely to use the title. The Bladerunner is sci-fi, but it has nothing to do with the plot of Blade Runner.

As time marches on, more and more movies set in the future get passed on the calendar. Blade Runner is one of the most recent examples of that. The film takes place in a dystopian Los Angeles in the year 2019.

When writing the script, Fancher had Robert Mitchum in mind for the role of Rick Deckard. Mitchum, a star of the ‘50s and ‘60s, would have been a decidedly older choice for the role. Scott initially honed in on Dustin Hoffman, but Hoffman eventually turned the role down because of a difference of opinions with Scott. In the end, Harrison Ford took the role, hoping to stretch his dramatic chops after making movies like Star Wars and Return of the Jedi.

Hoffman may have left the role due to creative differences, but that doesn’t mean Ford and Scott saw eye-to-eye on everything. Both have said they had a miserable time working with one another on Blade Runner. However, both have also said they patched things up in recent years and get along fine now that they aren’t trying to make a movie together.

There are multiple cuts of Blade Runner, which we will get into later, but the U.S. theatrical release features something Ford hated: narration. Ford could not stand the narration that was requested for the film. He called recording those voiceovers the worst part of the shooting and was annoyed that they were included in the theatrical release to “clarify” the film’s narrative for moviegoers.

Rutger Hauer plays Roy Batty, the leader of the renegade replicants. Scott not only considered Hauer his first choice, but he cast Hauer without ever even meeting him. The director had seen him in a few Paul Verhoeven films and cast him based on that.

Edward James Olmos, who plays Gaff, played a role in crafting the fictional language he speaks in the film called “Cityspeak.” It’s a mix of different real languages that Olmos pulled from his background. There’s some Hungarian in the mix. Additionally, Hauer reworked his iconic “tears in the rain” speech.

The Bradbury Building in Los Angeles is famous for its staircases and ironworks. You surely remember the stairs showing up in Blade Runner at J.F. Sebastian’s apartment building. This was not the first time the Bradbury showed up in Hollywood, though. It was a staple of film noir movies for years, popping up in literally dozens of noir flicks. It’s such an iconic spot, it’s used in The Artist, a movie that is an homage to classic Hollywood.

Even if you don’t recognize Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks” by name, you’ve likely seen the painting. It’s the famed image of people in a diner late at night. “Nighthawks” was referenced by Scott as one of his influences on the style of his film.

Blade Runner was released in 1982. Earlier that year, the score of 1981’s Chariots of Fire won Best Original Score at the Oscars. That award was won by the Greek composer Vangelis. The singular-named musician followed that up by composing the score to Blade Runner.

Philip K. Dıck lived long enough to see the rewritten script for Blade Runner and a 20-minute sizzle reel of Scott’s film. He was happy with what he saw, which was a bit of a surprise because Dıck was pretty skeptical of the film industry. Alas, the author died in March 1982, about three months before the film was released. It ended up being dedicated to his memory.

Science was having a moment in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. We’re talking about the first three Star Wars films, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., and more. Blade Runner did not join in on the fun. It cost roughly $30 million to make, and it earned $27.5 million during its original run. Due to re-releases, it has since made about $45 million, but it was initially a flop. It also got mixed reactions from critics.

While critics and audiences largely shrugged off Blade Runner, it wasn’t shut out at the Academy Awards. Granted, its two nominations were for Best Art Direction and Best Visual Effects, and it didn’t win them. The film did win three BAFTAs, though, including Best Cinematography.

In 1982, two versions of Blade Runner were released: one in the United States and one internationally that was a bit more violent. There was also a workprint version used for test screenings before the studio imposed stuff like a voiceover on the film. For a while, that version got shown as an unofficial “director’s cut.” In 1992, Scott did indeed get a director’s cut, which was way different. It removed the voiceover and cut the “happy ending” the studio wanted. Finally, in 2007, Scott released what he called “The Final Cut.” This was the first time the director had complete control over the product and could release exactly what he wanted.

What was once a flop is now considered a cult classic and one of the best sci-fi films ever. IGN and The Guardian both named it the best science-fiction movie of all time. Entertainment Weekly called it the ninth-best cult movie. Empire named it the 13th-best movie ever, period. It even finished 97th on the AFI’s list of the top 100 movies.

In 2017, we finally got a sequel to Blade Runner. Titled Blade Runner 2049 , it takes place 30 years after the action in the original. Hampton Francher returned as one of the writers, though Scott did not return to direct, with Denis Villeneuve stepping into the director’s role. Ford even returned as Rick Deckard, though Ryan Gosling is the sequel's star. Blade Runner 2049 won two Academy Awards and took home $260.5 million at the box office. Granted, it cost between $150 million and $185 million, but that’s still a bigger success than the original.

Deckard has a job as a Blade Runner chasing down rogue replicants, but is he a replicant? This is a question that has no real answer. Ford has said he believes Deckard to be human, while Scott has said he thinks he’s probably a replicant but did not go as far as to say he is definitively a replicant in his film. Villeneuve, when making the sequel, said he is unsure. Even Deckard’s dream of a unicorn in Scott’s cuts does not necessarily establish this for sure. The trivia regarding the question “Is Deckard a replicant?” is about how much debate there is even among people who worked on Blade Runner.