Ridley Scott BLASTS Blade Runner sequel flop: ‘THIS was its biggest mistake’

Blade Runner 2049 was one of the most anticipated movies of 2107.

Instead, it bombed at the US box office and is expected to be one of the biggest flops of the year.

The 1982 original, it should be noted, was also a failure on release but has attained cult status over the years.

This hasn’t stopped Scott from dispensing his advice on why he thinks the sequel performed so badly.

Blade Runner 2049 was ecstatically received by critics and is one of the best reviewed movies of the year. 

With Harrison Ford returning as Dekkard and two of Hollywood’s hottest leading men, Ryan Gosling and Jared Leto, stepping in, it was expected to be a cultural phenomenon.

Scott sums up the problem in one simple line to Al Arabiya: “It’s slow. It’s slow. Long. Too long. I would have taken out half an hour.”

Blade Runner 2049’s run time was two hours 44 minutes compared to one hour 57 minutes for the original.

The sequel also had a much bigger budget of $150million production costs. Promotional costs are usually estimated to double that.

The movie has only taken $258million worldwide and Warner Bros will only receive a cut of the box office take from cinemas. 

The director, Denis Villeneuve told Yahoo Entertainment: “I’m still digesting it. 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.”