Ridley Scott Weighs In On Why "Blade Runner 2049" Tanked At The Box Office

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"Blade Runner" director Ridley Scott knows why the sequel was a flop.

In a year where sci-fi sequels have been a mixed bag at the box office, Blade Runner 2049 stands as the antithesis to something like Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Met with near-universal praise by fans and critics alike, the follow-up to the 1982 Harrison Ford vehicle didn't impress at the box office, taking in $91 million domestically against a budget that is estimated to have surpassed $150 million. So, what went wrong? The original Blade Runner's director, Ridley Scott, offered up an explanation reported by Indiewire.

“It’s slow. It’s slow. Long. Too long. I would have taken out half an hour,” Scott said. The running time, which clocks in at two hours and forty-four minutes, was an aspect of the film that was criticized by many during the initial theatrical run and was even acknowledged by Villeneuve as a possible setback in getting non-Blade Runner fans excited about the project.

“I’m still digesting it,” Villeneuve said in an interview with Yahoo! Entertainment.. “It had the best [reviews] of my life. I never had a movie welcomed like that. At the same time, the box office in the United States was a disappointment, that’s the truth, because those movies are expensive. It will still make tons of money but not enough. The thing I think is that, it was maybe because people were not familiar enough with the universe. And the fact the movie’s long. I don’t know, it’s still a mystery to me.”

Were you a fan of Blade Runner 2049? Did it suffer from being too long? Make sure you weigh in in the comments section.


Ridley Scott

Ridley Scott Weighs In On Why "Blade Runner 2049" Tanked At The Box Office
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