Novels Blade Runner: A Story of the Future Philip K. Dick refused a $400,000 offer to write a
Blade Runner novelization, saying: "[I was] told the cheapo novelization would have to appeal to the twelve-year-old audience" and it "would have probably been disastrous to me artistically". He added, "That insistence on my part of bringing out the original novel and not doing the novelization – they were just furious. They finally recognized that there was a legitimate reason for reissuing the novel, even though it cost them money. It was a victory not just of contractual obligations but of theoretical principles." Eventually, a novelization of the movie entitled
Blade Runner: A Story of the Future, written by Les Martin, was released in 1982.
Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human In 1994,
K. W. Jeter, a personal friend of
Philip K. Dick, began developing a series of
Blade Runner novels that would serve as a continuation of both the film
Blade Runner, and the novel upon which it was based,
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. The first of these novels,
Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human, was published on October 1, 1995. The novel was set several months after the events of
Blade Runner, following Deckard living in an isolated shack outside of
Los Angeles, with Rachael with him in a Tyrell transport container, intended to slow down the replicant aging process. Deckard is called in by the human template of Rachael, Sarah Tyrell, to hunt down a missing replicant in exchange for technology allowing Rachael to live. Meanwhile, Roy Batty, the human template for the
replicant of the same name, hires Dave Holden, a blade runner previously attacked by Leon, to help him hunt down the man that he believes to be the sixth replicant – Deckard.
Blade Runner 3: Replicant Night In 1996,
K. W. Jeter published
science fiction novel
Blade Runner 3: Replicant Night, the sequel to
Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human. The novel follows
Rick Deckard, now living on
Mars, as he is acting as a consultant to a film crew filming
the story of his days as a blade runner. He finds himself drawn into a mission on behalf of the
replicants he was once assigned to kill. Meanwhile, the mystery surrounding the beginnings of the Tyrell Corporation is being dragged out into the light.
Blade Runner 4: Eye and Talon Blade Runner 4: Eye and Talon, also known as
Blade Runner 4: Beyond Orion, is the third novel written by
K. W. Jeter that continues the storyline started in the 1982
Blade Runner film. The novel was published in 2000. The story takes place concurrently with the events of
Blade Runner 3: Replicant Night, following Iris, a Blade Runner who has been sent on an assignment to find Eldon Tyrell's "real owl", which appears to have special significance to the Tyrell Corporation and other organizations.
Video games There are four
video games based on
Blade Runner:
one from 1985 for
Commodore 64,
ZX Spectrum, and
Amstrad CPC by CRL Group PLC based on the music by Vangelis (due to licensing issues),
another adventure PC game from 1997 by
Westwood Studios, and
a VR game from 2018 by Seismic Games. Both the 1997 and 2018 video games feature new characters and branching storylines based on the
Blade Runner world. Eldon Tyrell, Gaff, Leon, Rachael, Chew, J. F. Sebastian and Howie Lee appear in the 1997 video game, their voice files are recorded by the original actors, with the exception of Gaff, who is replaced by Javier Grajeda (as
Victor Gardell) and Howie Lee, who is replaced by Toru Nagai. Gaff and Dave Holden both appear in the 2018 game, voiced respectively by
Kirk Thornton and Steve Prince, while
Carolyn Hennesy voices Lilith Tyrell, niece of Eldon Tyrell; Lilith previously appeared in
Blade Runner in photographic form, actress unaccredited. The PC game and VR game feature a non-linear plot,
non-player characters that each ran in their own independent
AI, and an unusual pseudo-3D engine (which eschewed polygonal solids in favor of
voxel elements) that did not require the use of a 3D accelerator card to play the game. A
tabletop role-playing game,
Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game, released in 2022.
Comics A Marvel Comics Super Special: Blade Runner Archie Goodwin scripted the comic book adaptation of
Blade Runner, entitled
A Marvel Comics Super Special: Blade Runner, published in September 1982 as the twenty-second issue of the
Marvel Comics Super Special series of titles which, by the year 1982, only printed adaptations of films Marvel had obtained the rights to. It was later reprinted as a two-part miniseries, without the feature content contained in the special. In some printings, several pages of the comic were published out of order. Other printing set these pages in the correct order. In the
UK it was reprinted as the
Blade Runner Annual published by Grandreams. Again, the feature content of the original special was not reprinted. The trade paperback was published in black and white and contains images from the film; it is one of the rarest Marvel Comics trades ever. The book was poorly received upon its initial release. It was ridiculed for what the critics perceived as bad writing and misquoted lines of dialogue from the film.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? In 2009,
BOOM! Studios published
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, a 24 issue
comic book limited series and direct adaptation of
Philip K. Dick's
novel by the same name. The series was drawn by Tony Parker, and was nominated for an
Eisner Award in the category Best New Series. The characters in the adaptation were drawn in similar styles to the versions of the characters as presented in
the original 1982 film.
Dust to Dust In 2010,
BOOM! Studios published
Dust to Dust, an 8-issue
comic book limited series serving as a
prequel to the events of both
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968),
Blade Runner (1982) and
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (2009). The series was written by
Chris Roberson and drawn by Robert Adler, detailing the days after World War Terminus. The series was marketed with a sneak peek of an eight-page digital preview which was released on
iPad,
iPhone and
iPod Touch.
Aahna Ashina Series Three sequences of comics were released covering the life of LAPD detective Aahna Ashina, titled
Blade Runner 2019,
Blade Runner 2029 and
Blade Runner 2039. All three volumes were edited by David Leach, written by Mike Johnson (With
Michael Green, the screenwriter for
Bladerunner 2049 writing with Green for
Blade Runner 2019, and Mellow Brown writing with Green on the first issues of
Blade Runner 2039), drawn by Andres Guinaldo, colored by Marco Lesko and lettered by Jim Campbell.
Blade Runner 2019 On October 4, 2018,
The Hollywood Reporter published an announcement about a new
Blade Runner comic series that would be set in the film universe. The comic was co-written by Michael Green (who had worked on the second film) together with Mike Johnson, who scripted the comic. The first issue was released on July 17, 2019, with the twelfth and final issue released on November 18, 2020. The comic was collected into three volumes, with the first released on November 20, 2019, and the last on February 24, 2021.
Blade Runner 2029 On December 16, 2020, a sequel to
Blade Runner 2019 was released, continuing the 2019 series of comics. Titan Comics again were publishing.
Blade Runner Origins On March 10, 2021,
Blade Runner Origins was released by Titan Comics. Written by Mike Johnson, K. Perkins, and Mellow Brown, it is set in 2009, ten years before
Blade Runner. In June 2024, editor David Leach indicated that there would be a second set of comics ("Blade Runner Origins: Cascade Year 2"), but no date has been set for this as of October 2024.
Blade Runner: Black Lotus On April 28, 2022,
Blade Runner: Black Lotus was released by Titan Comics. Written by Nancy Collins, it is set after the events of the
Blade Runner: Black Lotus animated series. The collected version of the series was released under the title
Blade Runner: Black Lotus - Leaving L.A. The first volume ran from August 10, 2022 to November 2, 2022. In February 2024, the editor, David Leach, confirmed on Twitter that a second volume would be released in 2025.
Blade Runner 2039 On December 7, 2022,
Blade Runner 2039 was released by Titan Comics. Written by Mike Johnson, it is set ten years after
Blade Runner 2029 and completed the Aahna Ashina series.
Blade Runner: Tokyo Nexus On July 31, 2024,
Blade Runner: Tokyo Nexus was released by Titan Comics. Written by Kianna Shore and Mellow Brown, it is set in 2015, 4 years before
Blade Runner and 6 years after
Blade Runner Origins.
Nonfiction books ;
Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner Before filming of
Blade Runner began,
Cinefantastique magazine commissioned Paul M. Sammon to write an article about
Blade Runners production. This article became the book
Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner. The book chronicles
Blade Runners evolution, focusing on film-set politics, especially the British director's experiences with his first American film crew; of which producer
Alan Ladd, Jr. has said, "Harrison wouldn't speak to Ridley and Ridley wouldn't speak to Harrison. By the end of the shoot Ford was 'ready to kill Ridley', said one colleague. He really would have taken him on if he hadn't been talked out of it."
Future Noir has short cast biographies and quotations about their experiences, and photographs of the film's production and preliminary sketches. A second edition of
Future Noir was published in 2007. To promote the then-upcoming
Blade Runner 2049,
Future Noir Revised & Updated Edition: The Making of Blade Runner was re-released on September 13, 2017. ;
The Art and Soul of Blade Runner 2049 A behind-the-scenes guide to the film by Tanya Lapointe. ; Additional books •
Blade Runner: The Inside Story by Don Shay.
Academia •
BFI Modern Classics: Blade Runner by Scott Bukatman. •
York Film Notes: Blade Runner by Nick Lacey. • ''Retrofitting Blade Runner: Issues in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner'' by Judith B. Kerman. •
The Cyberpunk Nexus: Exploring the Blade Runner Universe, edited by Lou Tambone and Joe Bongiorno. •
Blade Runner: Cultographies by Matt Hills •
The Blade Runner Experience: The Legacy of a Science-Fiction Classic, edited by Will Brooker. •
Film Architecture: Set Designs From Metropolis to Blade Runner by Dietrich Neumann.
Autobiographies •
All Those Moments: Stories of Heroes, Villains, Replicants, and Blade Runners by
Rutger Hauer. •
Blade Runners, Deer Hunters, and Blowing the Bloody Doors Off: My Life in Cult Movies by
Michael Deeley, co-written with Matthew Field.
Documentaries The film has been the subject of a number of documentaries. ;
Blade Runner: Convention Reel (1982, 13 minutes) : Co-directed by Muffet Kaufman and Jeffrey B. Walker. Shot and screen in 16mm, featured no narrator, was filmed in 1981 while
Blade Runner was still in production and featured short "behind-the-scenes" segments showing sets being built and sequences being shot, as well as interviews with
Ridley Scott,
Syd Mead and
Douglas Trumbull. Appears on the
Blade Runner Ultimate Collector's Edition. ;
On the Edge of Blade Runner (2000, 55 minutes) : Directed by Andrew Abbott and hosted/written by
Mark Kermode. Interviews with production staff, including Ridley Scott, give details of the creative process and the turmoil during preproduction. Insights into Philip K. Dick and the origins of
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? are provided by Paul M. Sammon and Hampton Fancher. It includes interviews with executive producer
Bud Yorkin,
Syd Mead, and the cast, and commentary by science fiction author
Robert J. Sawyer and from film critics. ;
Dangerous Days: Making Blade Runner (2007, 213 minutes) : A documentary directed and produced by
Charles de Lauzirika for
The Final Cut version of the film. Its source material comprises more than 80 interviews, including extensive conversations with Ford, Young, and Scott. The documentary is presented in eight chapters, with each of the first seven covering a portion of the filmmaking process. The final chapter examines
Blade Runner's controversial legacy. ;
All Our Variant Futures: From Workprint to Final Cut (2007, 29 minutes) : Produced by Paul Prischman, appears on the
Blade Runner Ultimate Collector's Edition and provides an overview of the film's multiple versions and their origins, as well as detailing the seven-year-long restoration, enhancement and remastering process behind
The Final Cut.
Cancelled projects Metropolis In the 2000s, Scott proposed a sequel to
Blade Runner, entitled
Metropolis. The project never came to fruition due to rights issues.
Purefold In June 2009,
The New York Times reported that Scott and his brother, director
Tony Scott, were working on a series of 5–10 minute shorts,
Purefold, inspired by
Blade Runner and aimed first at the
web and then perhaps television. Due to rights problems, the series was not to be linked too closely to the characters or events of the 1982 film. On February 7, 2010, it was announced that production on
Purefold had ceased, due to funding problems. == Music ==