'Blade Runner' Producer Says '2049' Running Time Is "Criminal"

With a running time of 164 minutes, “Blade Runner 2049” demanded patience from audiences, with Denis Villeneuve setting a deliberately measured pace for the movie. And while some outlets have erroneously reported that the movie was once a four-hour, two-part epic (an assembly cut of all the footage shot is not an actual cut of the movie), there’s no doubt that the filmmakers had plenty to wrestle with. However, there’s one voice calling out against the supersized, sci-fi sequel.

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Michael Deeley, the producer of the original “Blade Runner,” who was not involved in the sequel and hasn’t even seen it, still has a lot to say about ‘2049.’ Mostly, that the length of the movie is pure folly.

”The picture is very long. It must have been cut-able and should have been. They can’t do better [box office] because they can’t play it more than three times a day because it’s just too long, which is of course self-indulgent at the very least, arrogant probably. It’s criminal,” he told Screen Daily.

So, why didn’t Deeley just make his own followup all those years ago. Well, chalk it up to the original’s poor box office at the time, coupled with friction with fellow producers, Bud Yorkin and Jerry Perenchio.

“The film didn’t catch fire for ten years so I couldn’t have made a remake or another version of it and I wouldn’t have wanted to anyway,” he said.

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“One of the things that spelt doom straight away was when Perenchio decided that he wanted to release the picture quickly to get his money back quickly,” Deeley explained. “That was ignorant and naive. The only time this picture could ever be released sensibly was in the late autumn or in the winter when you could have capitalised on award nominations. Instead, they decided to do it in summer, opposite another little known sci-fi movie – a picture called ‘ET.’ I wouldn’t talk to Bud Yorkin or Perenchio or have anything to do with them for the rest of my life.”

The post-mortem on “Blade Runner 2049” will likely continue for some time, but Deeley does have a point — the long running time doesn’t help when you’re trying to stack up dollar bills at the multiplex. Then again, Marvel movies and other blockbusters frequently have lengthy running times too and don’t suffer the same fate. Perhaps at the end of the day, the interest in “Blade Runner 2049” just wasn’t there.