While Blade Runner 2049 premiered last month to enthusiastic reviews – I called it a worthy successor to a sci-fi classic – it didn’t exactly light up the box office at home or abroad.
With an estimated budget in the range of $150-185 million, the film has taken in shy of $250 at the worldwide box office thus far, putting it well behind the estimated 2.5 break-even multiplier used to determine when a film starts making a profit after advertising costs are accounted for.
But that shouldn’t have come as a surprise: Ridley Scott’s original 1982 film grossed just $33 million on a $28 million budget at the 1982 box office, and didn’t exactly fare well with critics, either.
It was only when the film hit home video that it picked up a strong cult following, which led to the release of no less than five different versions of the film on VHS and DVD.
Those included a director’s cut that, among other changes, axed star Harrison Ford’s notoriously deadpan narration (it may, in fact, have been Ford’s robotic delivery that led to the popular fan theory that his character was actually a replicant).
And if you caught Blade Runner 2049 recently and want to see more of this stark futuristic world up on the big screen, Prague’s Kino Aero will be bringing the original classic back for a one-night-only engagement this week.
The original Blade Runner will be screened this Wednesday, November 15, at 20:30. Presented in English with Czech subtitles, tickets run 120 CZK.
The version of the film projected will be the 2007 ‘Final Cut’, clocking in at 117 minutes, which billed as the only version director Ridley Scott had complete control over. It includes the full-length unicorn dream sequence, missing from all previous versions of the film, along with additional violence and other edits from the international cut of the movie.
Blade Runner’s “Final Cut” was newly restored this year (with the original film elements scanned in 4K (35mm) and 8K (65mm) digital resolution), and briefly hit IMAX cinemas in the U.S. in September.
Now, it’s coming to Prague as part of a recurring series at Kino Aero that brings classic films back to the big screen every month.
It won’t be the last film of 2017 at the cinema’s Legends in Aero series, either. On December 1, Kino Aero will present Woody Allen’s Oscar-winning Annie Hall, and on December 27, for the first time in Prague, the original 1947 American Christmas classic Miracle on 34th Street.
