Interest in adapting Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? developed shortly after its 1968 publication. Director Martin Scorsese was interested in filming the novel, but never optioned it.^[11] Producer Herb Jaffe optioned it in the early 1970s, but Dick was unimpressed with the screenplay written by Herb's son Robert, saying, "Jaffe's screenplay was so terribly done ... Robert flew down to Santa Ana to speak with me about the project. And the first thing I said to him when he got off the plane was, 'Shall I beat you up here at the airport, or shall I beat you up back at my apartment?'"^[12]

The screenplay by Hampton Fancher was optioned in 1977.^[13] Producer Michael Deeley became interested in Fancher's draft and convinced director Ridley Scott to film it. Scott had previously declined the project but, after leaving the slow production of Dune, wanted a faster-paced project to take his mind off his older brother's recent death.^[14] He joined the project on February 21, 1980, and managed to push up the promised Filmways financing from US$13 million to $15 million. Fancher's script focused more on environmental issues and less on issues of humanity and religion, which are prominent in the novel, and Scott wanted changes. Fancher found a cinema treatment by William S. Burroughs for Alan E. Nourse's novel The Bladerunner (1974), titled Blade Runner (a movie).^{[nb 2]} Scott liked the name, so Deeley obtained the rights to the titles.^[15]

Dick publicly expressed distaste with Fancher's early screenplay in the LA press, calling the result a "terrible script. Corny, extremely maladroit throughout".^[16] He complained that it "overrelied on the old cliché-ridden Chandleresque figure" and that Fancher had "concentrated on a lurid collision between human and android. The whole skein of the book had been simplified into a 'you or me' type of thing; only one of us, this human or an android, will survive".^[16] Eventually, Scott hired David Peoples to rewrite the script and Fancher left the job over the issue on December 21, 1980, although he later returned to contribute additional rewrites.^[17] Dick was especially enthusiastic about the 1981 rewrite of Fancher's draft by Peoples:

This was the February 1981 version of the script, and it immediately struck me that all the previous problems had been resolved. Peoples had done a first-class piece of work. He'd smoothed out the dialogue and reworked certain problems in some of the scenes. And the whole idea of the replicants being infused with progeria, or premature aging, was a new twist. By inserting this angle, by dropping Rachael's suicide, by rethinking the final Batty/Deckard confrontation as a moving, wonderful sequence—and by any other number of touch-ups—Peoples transformed the Blade Runner screenplay into a beautiful, symmetrical reinforcement of my original work.^[18]

Peoples later suggested that his contributions were oversold, stating that Scott's "ideas and thrust were the motive force of the film" and noting that Scott was "totally involved on every level of scripting."^[18] He also praised an early script by Fancher, and credited actors Harrison Ford and Rutger Hauer with offering ideas about dialogue.^[18] Hauer rewrote his character's "tears in rain" speech himself and presented the words to Scott on set prior to filming.^[19]

Having invested more than $2.5 million in pre-production,^[20] as the date of commencement of principal photography neared, Filmways withdrew financial backing. In ten days Deeley had secured $21.5 million in financing through a three-way deal between the Ladd Company (through Warner Bros.), the Hong Kong-based producer Sir Run Run Shaw and Tandem Productions.^[21]

Casting the film proved troublesome, particularly for the lead role of Deckard. Screenwriter Hampton Fancher envisioned Robert Mitchum as Deckard and wrote the character's dialogue with Mitchum in mind.^[22] According to production documents, several actors were considered for the role, including Gene Hackman, Sean Connery, Jack Nicholson, Paul Newman, Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Peter Falk, Nick Nolte, Al Pacino and Burt Reynolds.^[22][23] Director Ridley Scott and the film's producers spent months meeting and discussing the role with Dustin Hoffman, who eventually departed over differences in vision.^[22] Harrison Ford was ultimately chosen for several reasons, including his performance in the Star Wars films, Ford's interest in the Blade Runner story, and discussions with Steven Spielberg, who was finishing Raiders of the Lost Ark at the time and strongly praised Ford's work in the film.^[22] Following his success in those two films, Ford was looking for a role with dramatic depth.^[24]

Rutger Hauer was cast as Roy Batty,^[25] the violent yet thoughtful leader of the replicants.^[26] Scott cast Hauer without having met him, based on his performances in Paul Verhoeven's movies that Scott had seen (Katie Tippel, Soldier of Orange, and Turkish Delight).^[22] Hauer's portrayal of Batty was regarded by Philip K. Dick as "the perfect Batty – cold, Aryan, flawless".^[27] Of the many films Hauer made, Blade Runner was his favorite. In a live chat in 2001, he said "Blade Runner needs no explanation. It just izz. All of the best. There is nothing like it. To be part of a real masterpiece which changed the world's thinking. It's awesome."^[28]

Blade Runner used a number of then-lesser-known actors: Sean Young portrays Rachael, an experimental replicant implanted with the memories of Tyrell's niece, causing her to believe she is human;^[29] Nina Axelrod auditioned for the role.^[22] Fancher originally wrote the role for his then girlfriend Barbara Hershey.^[30] Daryl Hannah portrays Pris, a "basic pleasure model" replicant; Stacey Nelkin auditioned for the role, but was given another part in the film, which was ultimately cut before filming.^[22] Debbie Harry turned down the role of Pris.^[31][32] Casting Pris and Rachael was challenging, requiring several screen tests with Morgan Paull playing the role of Deckard. Paull was cast as Deckard's fellow bounty hunter Holden based on his performances in the tests.^[22] Brion James portrays Leon Kowalski, a combat and laborer replicant, and Joanna Cassidy portrays Zhora, an assassin replicant.

Edward James Olmos portrays Gaff. Olmos drew on diverse ethnic sources to help create the fictional "Cityspeak" language his character uses in the film.^[33] His initial address to Deckard at the noodle bar is partly in Hungarian and means, "Horse dick [bullshit]! No way. You are the Blade ... Blade Runner."^[33] M. Emmet Walsh portrays Captain Bryant, a rumpled, hard-drinking and underhanded police veteran typical of the film noir genre. Joe Turkel portrays Dr. Eldon Tyrell, a corporate mogul who built an empire on genetically manipulated humanoid slaves. William Sanderson was cast as J. F. Sebastian, a quiet and lonely genius who provides a compassionate yet compliant portrait of humanity. J. F. sympathizes with the replicants, whom he sees as companions,^[34] and he shares their shorter lifespan due to his rapid aging disease.^[35] Joe Pantoliano had earlier been considered for the role.^[36] James Hong portrays Hannibal Chew, an elderly geneticist specializing in synthetic eyes, and Hy Pyke portrayed the sleazy bar owner Taffey Lewis – in a single take, something almost unheard-of with Scott, whose drive for perfection resulted at times in double-digit takes.^[37]

Principal photography of Blade Runner began on March 9, 1981, and ended four months later.^[38] The Bradbury Building in downtown Los Angeles served as a filming location, and a Warner Bros. backlot housed the 2019 Los Angeles street sets. Other locations included the Ennis-Brown House and the 2nd Street Tunnel. Test screenings resulted in several changes, including adding a voice-over, a happy ending, and the removal of a Holden hospital scene. The relationship between the filmmakers and the investors was difficult, which culminated in Deeley and Scott being fired but still working on the film.^[39] Crew members created T-shirts during filming saying, "Yes Guv'nor, My Ass" that mocked Scott's unfavorable comparison of U.S. and British crews; Scott responded with a T-shirt of his own, "Xenophobia Sucks", making the incident known as the T-shirt war.^[40][41]

In 1992, Ford revealed, "Blade Runner is not one of my favorite films. I tangled with Ridley."^[42] Apart from friction with the director, Ford also disliked the voiceovers: "When we started shooting it had been tacitly agreed that the version of the film that we had agreed upon was the version without voiceover narration. It was a f**king [sic] nightmare. I thought that the film had worked without the narration. But now I was stuck re-creating that narration. And I was obliged to do the voiceovers for people that did not represent the director's interests."^[24] "I went kicking and screaming to the studio to record it."^[43] The narration monologs were written by an uncredited Roland Kibbee.^[44] Previous rejected iterations were written by Hampton Fancher, David Peoples and Darryl Ponicsan.^[45]

In 2006, Scott was asked "Who's the biggest pain in the arse you've ever worked with?" He replied: "It's got to be Harrison ... he'll forgive me because now I get on with him. Now he's become charming. But he knows a lot, that's the problem. When we worked together it was my first film up and I was the new kid on the block. But we made a good movie."^[46] Ford said of Scott in 2000: "I admire his work. We had a bad patch there, and I'm over it."^[47] In 2006 Ford reflected on the production of the film saying: "What I remember more than anything else when I see Blade Runner is not the 50 nights of shooting in the rain, but the voiceover ... I was still obliged to work for these clowns that came in writing one bad voiceover after another."^[48] Ridley Scott confirmed in the summer 2007 issue of Total Film that Harrison Ford contributed to the Blade Runner Special Edition DVD, and had already recorded his interviews. "Harrison's fully on board", said Scott.^[49]

Although Dick died shortly before the film's release, he was pleased with a 20-minute special effects test reel that was screened for him when he was invited to the studio. Despite his well-known skepticism of Hollywood in principle, Dick enthused to Scott that the world created for the film looked exactly as he had imagined it.^[27] He said, "I saw a segment of Douglas Trumbull's special effects for Blade Runner on the KNBC news. I recognized it immediately. It was my own interior world. They caught it perfectly." He also approved of the film's final script, saying: "After I finished reading the screenplay, I got the novel out and looked through it. The two reinforce each other so that someone who started with the novel would enjoy the movie and someone who started with the movie would enjoy the novel."^[50] The motion picture was dedicated to Dick.^[51]

Scott credits Edward Hopper's painting Nighthawks and the French science fiction comics magazine Métal Hurlant, to which the artist Jean "Moebius" Giraud contributed, as stylistic mood sources.^[52] He also drew on the landscape of "Hong Kong on a very bad day"^[53] and the industrial landscape of his one-time home in northeast England.^[54] The visual style of the movie is influenced by the work of futurist Italian architect Antonio Sant'Elia.^[55] Scott hired Syd Mead as his concept artist; like Scott, he was influenced by Métal Hurlant.^[56] Moebius was offered the opportunity to assist in the pre-production of Blade Runner, but he declined so that he could work on René Laloux's animated film Les Maîtres du temps – a decision that he later regretted.^[57] Production designer Lawrence G. Paull and art director David Snyder realized Scott's and Mead's sketches. Douglas Trumbull and Richard Yuricich supervised the special effects for the film, and Mark Stetson served as chief model maker.^[58]

Blade Runner has numerous similarities to Fritz Lang's Metropolis, including a built-up urban environment, in which the wealthy literally live above the workers, dominated by a huge building – the Stadtkrone Tower in Metropolis and the Tyrell Building in Blade Runner. Special effects supervisor David Dryer used stills from Metropolis when lining up Blade Runner's miniature building shots.^[59]

The extended end scene in the original theatrical release shows Rachael and Deckard traveling into daylight with pastoral aerial shots filmed by director Stanley Kubrick. Ridley Scott contacted Kubrick about using some of his surplus helicopter aerial photography from The Shining.^[60][61][62]

Spinner

Main article: Spinner (Blade Runner)

"Spinner" is the generic term for the fictional flying cars used in the film. A spinner can be driven as a ground-based vehicle, and take off vertically, hover, and cruise much like vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft. They are used extensively by the police as patrol cars, and wealthy people can also acquire spinner licenses.^[63] The vehicle was conceived and designed by Syd Mead who described the spinner as an aerodyne – a vehicle which directs air downward to create lift, though press kits for the film stated that the spinner was propelled by three engines: "conventional internal combustion, jet, and anti-gravity".^[64][65] A spinner is on permanent exhibit at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in Seattle, Washington.^[66] Mead's conceptual drawings were transformed into 25 vehicles by automobile customizer Gene Winfield; at least two were working ground vehicles, while others were lightweight mockups for crane shots and set decoration for street shots.^[67] Two of them ended up at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, but were later destroyed, and a few others remain in private collections.^[67]

The Blade Runner soundtrack by Vangelis is a dark melodic combination of classic composition and futuristic synthesizers which mirrors the film noir retro-future envisioned by Scott.^[71] Vangelis, fresh from his Academy Award-winning score for Chariots of Fire,^[72] composed and performed the music on his synthesizers.^[73] He also made use of various chimes and the vocals of collaborator Demis Roussos.^[74] Another memorable sound is the tenor sax solo "Love Theme" by British saxophonist Dick Morrissey, who performed on many of Vangelis's albums. Ridley Scott also used "Memories of Green" from the Vangelis album See You Later, an orchestral version of which Scott would later use in his film Someone to Watch Over Me.^[75]

Along with Vangelis's compositions and ambient textures, the film's soundscape also features a track by the Japanese ensemble Nipponia – "Ogi no Mato" or "The Folding Fan as a Target" from the Nonesuch Records release Traditional Vocal and Instrumental Music – and a track by harpist Gail Laughton from "Harps of the Ancient Temples" on Laurel Records.^[76]

Despite being well received by fans and critically acclaimed and nominated in 1982 for a BAFTA and a Golden Globe as best original score, and the promise of a soundtrack album from Polydor Records in the end titles of the film, the release of the official soundtrack recording was delayed for over a decade. There are two official releases of the music from Blade Runner. In light of the lack of a release of an album, the New American Orchestra recorded an orchestral adaptation in 1982 which bore little resemblance to the original. Some of the film tracks would, in 1989, surface on the compilation Vangelis: Themes, but not until the 1992 release of the Director's Cut version would a substantial amount of the film's score see commercial release.^[74]

These delays and poor reproductions led to the production of many bootleg recordings over the years. A bootleg tape surfaced in 1982 at science fiction conventions and became popular given the delay of an official release of the original recordings, and in 1993 "Off World Music, Ltd" created a bootleg CD that would prove more comprehensive than Vangelis' official CD in 1994.^[74] A set with three CDs of Blade Runner-related Vangelis music was released in 2007. Titled Blade Runner Trilogy, the first disc contains the same tracks as the 1994 official soundtrack release, the second features previously unreleased music from the film, and the third disc is all newly composed music from Vangelis, inspired by, and in the spirit of the film.^[77]

The film's special effects are generally recognized to be among the best in the genre,^[78][79] using the available (non-digital) technology to the fullest. Special effects engineers who worked on the film are often praised for the innovative technology they used to produce and design certain aspects of those visuals.^[80] In addition to matte paintings and models, the techniques employed included multipass exposures. In some scenes, the set was lit, shot, the film rewound, and then rerecorded over with different lighting. In some cases this was done 16 times in all. The cameras were frequently motion controlled using computers.^[78] Many effects used techniques which had been developed during the production of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.^[81]

Blade Runner was released in 1,290 theaters on June 25, 1982. That date was chosen by producer Alan Ladd Jr. because his previous highest-grossing films (Star Wars and Alien) had a similar opening date (May 25) in 1977 and 1979, making the 25th of the month his "lucky day".^[82] Blade Runner grossed reasonably good ticket sales in its opening weekend, earning $6.1 million during its first weekend in theaters.^[83] The film was released close to other major science-fiction and fantasy releases such as The Thing, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Conan the Barbarian and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which is said to have affected its commercial success.^[84]

Several versions of Blade Runner have been shown. The original workprint version (1982, 113 minutes) was shown for audience test previews in Denver and Dallas in March 1982. Negative responses to the previews led to the modifications resulting in the U.S. theatrical version.^[85][86] The workprint was shown as a director's cut without Scott's approval at the Los Angeles Fairfax Theater in May 1990, at an AMPAS showing in April 1991, and in September and October 1991 at the Los Angeles Nuart Theatre and the San Francisco Castro Theatre.^[87] Positive responses pushed the studio to approve work on an official director's cut.^[88] A San Diego sneak preview was shown once, in May 1982; it was almost identical to the U.S. theatrical version but contained three extra scenes not shown in any other version, including the 2007 final cut.^[89]

Two versions were shown in the film's 1982 theatrical release: the U.S. theatrical version (117 minutes),^[1] known as the original version or Domestic Cut (released on Betamax, CED Videodisc and VHS in 1983, and on LaserDisc in 1987), and the International Cut (117 minutes), also known as the "Criterion Edition" or "uncut version", which included more violent action scenes than the U.S. version. Although initially unavailable in the U.S. and distributed in Europe and Asia via theatrical and local Warner Home Video releases, the International Cut was later released on VHS and The Criterion Collection Laserdisc in North America, and re-released in 1992 as a "10th Anniversary Edition".^[90]

Ridley Scott's Director's Cut (1992, 116 minutes)^[91] had significant changes from the theatrical version including the removal of Deckard's voice-over, the re-insertion of a sequence in which Deckard dreams of a unicorn, and the removal of the studio-imposed happy ending. Scott provided extensive notes and consultation to Warner Bros. through film preservationist Michael Arick, who was put in charge of creating the Director's Cut.^[92]

It is often falsely claimed that the unicorn sequence was an outtake from Ridley Scott's follow-up film Legend which also features unicorns, but it was in fact shot for Blade Runner as "additional photography" by second unit cinematographer Brian Tufano.^[93]

Scott's definitive The Final Cut (2007, 117 minutes)^[94] was released by Warner Bros. theatrically on October 5, 2007, and subsequently released on DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray Disc in December 2007.^[95] This is the only version over which Scott had complete artistic and editorial control.^[92] It was released on Ultra HD Blu-ray on September 5, 2017.^[96]

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an 89% approval rating based on 132 reviews, with an average rating of 8.50/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Misunderstood when it first hit theaters, the influence of Ridley Scott's mysterious, neo-noir Blade Runner has deepened with time. A visually remarkable, achingly human sci-fi masterpiece."^[97] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 84 out of 100 based on 15 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".^[98] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.^[99]

Initial reactions among film critics were mixed. Some wrote that the plot took a back seat to the film's special effects and did not fit the studio's marketing as an action and adventure film. Others acclaimed its complexity and predicted it would stand the test of time.^[100] Negative criticism in the United States cited its slow pace.^[101] Sheila Benson from the Los Angeles Times called it "Blade Crawler", and Pat Berman in The State and Columbia Record described it as "science fiction pornography".^[102] Pauline Kael praised Blade Runner as worthy of a place in film history for its distinctive sci-fi vision, yet criticized the film's lack of development in "human terms".^[103] Ares magazine said, "Misunderstood by audiences and critics alike, it is by far the best science fiction film of the year."^[104]

Academics began analyzing the film almost as soon as it was released. One of the first books on the film was Paul M. Sammon's Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner (1996), which dissects the details concerning the film's production.^[105] He was followed by Scott Bukatman's Blade Runner and other books and academic articles.^[106][107] In Postmodern Metanarratives: Blade Runner and Literature in the Age of Image, Décio Torres Cruz analyzes the philosophical and psychological issues and the literary influences in Blade Runner. He examines the film's cyberpunk and dystopic elements by establishing a link between the Biblical, classical and modern traditions and the postmodern aspects in the film's collage of several literary texts.^[9]

The boom in home video formats helped establish a growing cult around the film,^[80] which scholars have analysed for its dystopic aspects, questions regarding "authentic" humanity, ecofeminist aspects and use of conventions from many genres.^[108][109] Popular culture began to reassess its impact as a classic several years after it was released.^{[110][111][112]} Roger Ebert praised the visuals of the original and the Director's Cut and recommended it for that reason; he found the human story clichéd and a little thin.^[26] He later added The Final Cut to his "Great Movies" list.^[113] Chris Rodley and Janet Maslin thought that Blade Runner changed cinematic and social discourse through its image repertoire and influence on films.^[114] In 2012, Time film critic Richard Corliss analyzed the durability, complexity, screenplay, sets and production dynamics from a personal, three-decade perspective.^[115] Denis Villeneuve, who directed the sequel, Blade Runner 2049, cites the film as a huge influence for him and many others.^[112]

It has also been noted for its postmodernism and that it contributes to the historical development of modern dystopia in film.^[116] The futuristic version of Los Angeles has been widely discussed by academics, with some comparing it to Milton's descriptions of hell in Paradise Lost^[117] and others connecting it with the long history of depictions of urban ruin in fiction.^[118] In a 2019 retrospective, the BBC argued that elements of the film's socio-political themes remained prescient in the real year of the film's setting, such as its depiction of climate change.^[119] From a more philosophical perspective, Alison Landsberg described Scott's direction of the film as a "prosthetic memory"—an action that has never happened and appears to be divorced from lived experience, yet it defines personhood and identity within the wider Blade Runner universe.^[120]