Blade Runner is hailed as one of the best science fiction movies ever made and is considered by many to be the crowning achievement (along with Alien) in the career of renowned director Ridley Scott. However, Scott was actually fired at one point while working on Blade Runner and was only allowed to return after he conceded to studio demands for changes to the film.
While the movie is widely regarded as a cinematic masterpiece due to Ridley Scott’s filmmaking craft, the cast and crew reportedly did not enjoy working with him—particularly Harrison Ford, who had a falling out with the director. However, this conflict was not what led to Scott’s firing. The filming of the movie had actually been completed, but it had gone way over budget so producers Jerry Perenchio and Bud Yorkin decided to give Scott the boot and take over the editing in hopes of keeping costs from ballooning too far out of control.
Ridley Scott ended up returning to the production when Alan Ladd Jr. (who’s company had partially financed the film) intervened, but the director’s brief departure opened the window for the producers to retain creative control over the movie. And this was significant because it resulted in the alterations to the original cut which added the voice-overs and the happier ending.
The producers demanded that the re-hired Scott make these changes when the movie did not screen well with test audiences. Apparently the feedback they received from these screenings indicated that the movie was confusing, so they felt the voice-overs would help keep the audience from losing track of the story and also provide a less ambiguous ending. And the producers actually wanted more in the way of blow-by-blow descriptions from Deckard, but Scott countered by having the character give bits of back-story along with some of his own musings.
These changes would long be a controversial part of the film and Scott eventually re-edited Blade Runner with the voice-overs removed and with his original ending in the director’s cut which would hit home video in the 1991. And legend has it that Harrison Ford intentionally did a poor job of narrating hoping they would not use it, but in a 2002 interview he claimed that he did the best he could with what he was given to work with: “I delivered it to the best of my ability, given that I had no input. I never thought they’d use it. But I didn’t try and sandbag it. It was simply bad narration.”
Now as to the claims of some fans that Ridley Scott should have been fired from Prometheus, that’s a completely different story . . .
Source: IMDb.com
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