The knee jerk reaction to the very idea of someone doing a sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1982 seminal piece of sci-fi, “Blade Runner”, is grave concern. After all, you don’t get to be as important a work of fiction as “Blade Runner” because you’re middling; you get to be where you are — aka greatness — precisely because you were so damn great in the first place. As such, when a screenwriter announced that he was writing a script for a “Blade Runner” sequel at a recent screening of “Eagle Eye”, a lot of people got into an uproar. My initial reaction was to feel offended; but then I thought, “Well, he’s talking about a sequel, and NOT a remake, as is the fashionable thing to do in Hollywood nowadays, so that’s the lesser of two evils.” And even if the sequel sucks by comparison to the original — doesn’t most sequels suck by comparison to originals, anyway?

The news of the existence of someone writing a “Blade Runner” sequel surfaced from SlashFilm, where someone sent in a scoop regarding the formerly in-progress script:

“I recently attended a Q&A session with one of the writers of ‘Eagle Eye’ after a free screening organized by the magazine Creative Screenwriting. During the Q&A, the writer said that he and whomever it was that helped him co-write the ‘Eagle Eye’ screenplay were in the process of writing a sequel to Blade Runner, and had already contacted the producers of the original, etc., etc. This is probably a load of empty words/wishful thinking on his part, but I for one am appalled by just the notion of a Blade Runner sequel, and thought you’d be as well, so I thought perhaps you’d like to look into this yourself and perhaps use your soapbox to get some fanboys a little pissed, as well. If not, then at least you have a scoop.”

The writer in question is one Travis Wright, who has apparently been working on the sequel idea with writing partner John Glenn. But here’s the catch: Glenn has since updated SlashFilm with this email:

John Glenn, here. I just read your article about myself and Travis Wright working on a remake of Blade Runner … Travis and I actually broke off as writing partners years ago - after the first draft of Eagle Eye. Due to previous commitments, I couldn’t make the screening / Q&A last week — so to be honest, I have no idea what Travis was talking about or why he brought up a project we were tooling with years ago, when we still wrote together. There was a point where Travis and I were working with Bud Yorkin on a sequel to Blade Runner, but that was years back. It never got too far off the ground because the movie is so perfect, so the more we thought about it, the more uneasy we became with the idea. Anyway, just an note to clear the air. My apologies to you and your readers for the confusion Travis created.

Two things: one) John Glenn is no longer attached to anything regarding a “Blade Runner” sequel or remake; two) At one point in time, someone, somewhere, actually thought it was a good idea to remake “Blade Runner”. Good God, Hollywood, are you THIS creatively bankrupt???

Anyways, after the brouhaha this has caused on the Internet, the sequel/remake/whatever is probably dead in the waters. Good riddance to bad, bad, poorly thought out rubbish.

Below: Rick Deckard would never approve of a sequel, and neither would his replicant-killing gun.