title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: The cast also includes Mark Rolston as Bogs Diamond, the head of "the Sisters" gang and a prison rapist; Jeffrey DeMunn as the prosecuting attorney in Dufresne's trial; Alfonso Freeman as Fresh Fish Con; Ned Bellamy and Don McManus as, respectively, prison guards Youngblood and Wiley; and Dion Anderson as Head Bull Haig. Renee Blaine portrays Andy's wife, and Scott Mann portrays her golf-instructor lover Glenn Quentin. Frank Medrano plays Fat Ass, one of Andy's fellow new inmates who is beaten to death by Hadley, and Bill Bolender plays Elmo Blatch, a convict who may actually be responsible for the crimes for which Andy is convicted. James Kisicki and Claire Slemmer portray the Maine National Bank manager and a teller, respectively.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: The film has been interpreted as being grounded in Christian mysticism. Andy is offered as a messianic, Christ-like figure, with Red describing him early in the film as having an aura that engulfs and protects him from Shawshank. The scene in which Andy and several inmates tar the prison roof can be seen as a recreation of the Last Supper, with Andy obtaining beer/wine for the twelve inmates/disciples as Freeman describes them as the "lords of all creation" invoking Jesus' blessing. Director Frank Darabont responded that this was not his deliberate intention, but he wanted people to find their own meaning in the film. The discovery of "The Marriage of Figaro" record is described in the screenplay as akin to finding the Holy Grail, bringing the prisoners to a halt, and causing the sick to rise up in their beds.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: Early in the film, Warden Norton quotes Jesus Christ to describe himself to Andy, saying, "I am the light of the world", declaring himself Andy's savior, but this description can also reference Lucifer, the bearer of light. Indeed, the warden does not enforce the general rule of law, but chooses to enforce his own rules and punishments as he sees fit, becoming a law unto himself, like the behavior of Satan. The warden has also been compared to former United States President Richard Nixon. Norton's appearance and public addresses can be seen to mirror Nixon's. Similarly, Norton projects an image of a holy man, speaking down sanctimoniously to the servile masses while running corrupt scams, like those of which Nixon was accused.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: Zihuatanejo has been interpreted as an analogue for heaven or paradise. In the film, Andy describes it as a place with no memory, offering absolution from his sins by forgetting about them or allowing them to be washed away by the Pacific Ocean, whose name means "peaceful". The possibility of escaping to Zihuatanejo is only raised after Andy admits that he feels responsible for his wife's death. Similarly, Red's freedom is only earned once he accepts he cannot save himself or atone for his sins. Freeman has described Red's story as one of salvation as he is not innocent of his crimes, unlike Andy who finds redemption. While some Christian viewers interpret Zihuatanejo as heaven, film critic Mark Kermode wrote that it can also be interpreted as a Nietzschean form of guiltlessness achieved outside traditional notions of good and evil, where the amnesia offered is the destruction rather than forgiveness of sin, meaning Andy's aim is secular and atheistic. Just as Andy can be interpreted as a Christ-like figure, he can be seen as a Zarathustra-like prophet offering escape through education and the experience of freedom. Film critic Roger Ebert argued that "The Shawshank Redemption" is an allegory for maintaining one's feeling of self-worth when placed in a hopeless position. Andy's integrity is an important theme in the story line, especially in prison, where integrity is lacking.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: Robbins himself believes that the concept of Zihuatanejo resonates with audiences because it represents a form of escape that can be achieved after surviving for many years within whatever "jail" someone finds themselves in, whether a bad relationship, job, or environment. Robbins said that it is important that such a place exists for us. Isaac M. Morehouse suggests that the film provides a great illustration of how characters can be free, even in prison, or imprisoned, even in freedom, based on their outlooks on life. Philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre described freedom as an ongoing project that requires attention and resilience, without which a person begins to be defined by others or institutions, mirroring Red's belief that inmates become dependent on the prison to define their lives. Andy displays resilience through rebellion, by playing music over the prison loudspeaker, and refusing to continue with the money-laundering scam.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: Many elements can be considered as tributes to the power of cinema. In the prison theater, the inmates watch the film "Gilda" (1946), but this scene was originally intended to feature "The Lost Weekend" (1945). The interchangeability of the films used in the prison theater suggests that it is the cinematic experience and not the subject that is key to the scene, allowing the men to escape the reality of their situation. Immediately following this scene, Andy is assaulted by the Sisters in the projector room and uses a film reel to help fight them off. At the end of the film, Andy passes through a hole in his cell hidden by a movie poster to escape both his cell and ultimately Shawshank.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: Andy and Red's relationship has been described as a nonsexual story between two men, that few other films offer, as the friendship is not built on conducting a caper, car chases, or developing a relationship with women. Philosopher Alexander Hooke argued that Andy and Red's true freedom is their friendship, being able to share joy and humor with each other.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: Darabont first collaborated with author Stephen King in 1983 on the short film adaptation of "The Woman in the Room", buying the rights from him for $1—a Dollar Deal that King used to help new directors build a résumé by adapting his short stories. After receiving his first screenwriting credit in 1987 for "", Darabont returned to King with $5,000 to purchase the rights to adapt "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption", a 96-page novella from King's 1982 collection "Different Seasons", written to explore genres other than the horror stories for which he was commonly known. Although King did not understand how the story, largely focused on Red contemplating his fellow prisoner Andy, could be turned into a feature film, Darabont believed it was "obvious". King never cashed the $5,000 check from Darabont; he later framed it and returned it to Darabont accompanied by a note which read: "In case you ever need bail money. Love, Steve."


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: Five years later, Darabont wrote the script over an eight-week period. He expanded on elements of King's story. Brooks, who in the novella is a minor character who dies in a retirement home, became a tragic character who eventually hanged himself. Tommy, who in the novella trades his evidence exonerating Andy for transfer to a nicer prison, in the screenplay is murdered on the orders of Warden Norton, who is a composite of several warden characters in King's story. Darabont opted to create a single warden character to serve as the primary antagonist. Among his inspirations, Darabont listed the works of director Frank Capra, including "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (1939) and "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946), describing them as tall tales; Darabont likened "The Shawshank Redemption" to a tall tale more than a prison movie. He also cited "Goodfellas" (1990) as an inspiration on the use of dialogue to illustrate the passage of time in the script, and the prison drama "Birdman of Alcatraz" (1962) directed by John Frankenheimer. While later scouting filming locations, Darabont happened upon Frankenheimer who was scouting for his own prison-set project "Against the Wall". Darabont recalled that Frankenheimer took time out from his scouting to provide Darabont with encouragement and advice.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: At the time, prison-based films were not considered likely box-office successes, but Darabont's script was read by then-Castle Rock Entertainment producer Liz Glotzer, whose interest in prison stories and reaction to the script, led her to threaten to quit if Castle Rock did not produce "The Shawshank Redemption". Director and Castle Rock co-founder Rob Reiner also liked the script. He offered Darabont between $2.4 million and $3 million to allow him to direct it himself. Reiner, who had previously adapted King's 1982 novella "The Body" into the 1986 film "Stand by Me", planned to cast Tom Cruise as Andy and Harrison Ford as Red.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: Castle Rock offered to finance any other film Darabont wanted to develop. Darabont seriously considered the offer, citing growing up poor in Los Angeles, believing it would elevate his standing in the industry, and that Castle Rock could have contractually fired him and given the film to Reiner anyway, but he chose to remain the director, saying in a 2014 "Variety" interview, "you can continue to defer your dreams in exchange for money and, you know, die without ever having done the thing you set out to do". Reiner served as Darabont's mentor on the project, instead. Within two weeks of showing the script to Castle Rock, Darabont had a $25 million budget to make his film (taking a $750,000 screenwriting and directing salary plus a percentage of the net profits), and pre-production began in January 1993.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: Freeman was cast at the suggestion of producer Liz Glotzer, who ignored the novella's character description of a white Irishman, nicknamed "Red". Freeman's character alludes to the choice when queried by Andy on why he is called Red, replying "Maybe it's because I'm Irish." Freeman opted not to research his role, saying "acting the part of someone who's incarcerated doesn't require any specific knowledge of incarceration ... because men don't change. Once you're in that situation, you just toe whatever line you have to toe." Darabont was already aware of Freeman from his minor role in another prison drama, "Brubaker" (1980), while Robbins had been excited to work alongside the actor, having grown up watching him in "The Electric Company" children's television show.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: Darabont looked initially at some of his favorite actors, such as Gene Hackman and Robert Duvall, for the role of Andy Dufresne, but they were unavailable; Clint Eastwood and Paul Newman were also considered. Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, and Kevin Costner were offered, and passed on the role—Hanks due to his starring role in "Forrest Gump", and Costner because he had the lead in "Waterworld". Johnny Depp, Nicolas Cage, and Charlie Sheen were also considered for the role at different stages. Cruise attended table readings of the script, but declined to work for the inexperienced Darabont. Darabont said he cast Robbins after seeing his performance in the 1990 psychological horror "Jacob's Ladder". When Robbins was cast, he insisted that Darabont use experienced cinematographer Roger Deakins, who had worked with him on "The Hudsucker Proxy". To prepare for the role, Robbins observed caged animals at a zoo, spent an afternoon in solitary confinement, spoke with prisoners and guards, and had his arms and legs shackled for a few hours.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: Cast initially as young convict Tommy, Brad Pitt dropped out following his success in "Thelma & Louise", and the role went to a debuting Gil Bellows. James Gandolfini passed on portraying prison rapist Bogs. Bob Gunton was filming "Demolition Man" (1993) when he went to audition for the role of Warden Norton. To convince the studio that Gunton was right for the part, Darabont and producer Niki Marvin arranged for him to record a screen test on a day off from "Demolition Man". They had a wig made for him as his head was shaved for his "Demolition Man" role. Gunton wanted to portray Norton with hair as this could then be grayed to convey his on-screen aging as the film progressed. Gunton performed his screen test with Robbins, which was filmed by Deakins. After being confirmed for the role, he used the wig in the film's early scenes until his hair regrew. Gunton said that Marvin and Darabont saw that he understood the character, which went in his favor, as did the fact his height was similar to Robbins', allowing Andy to believably use the warden's suit.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: Portraying the head guard Byron Hadley, Clancy Brown was given the opportunity to speak with former guards by the production's liaison officer, but declined, believing it would not be a good thing to say that his brutal character was in any way inspired by Ohio state correctional officers. William Sadler, who portrays Heywood, said that Darabont had approached him in 1989 on the set of the "Tales from the Crypt" television series, where he was a writer, about starring in the adaptation he was intending to make. Freeman's son Alfonso has a cameo as a young Red in mug shot photos, and as a prisoner shouting "fresh fish" as Andy arrives at Shawshank. Among the extras used in the film were the former warden and former inmates of the reformatory, and active guards from a nearby incarceration facility. The novella's original title attracted several people to audition for the nonexistent role of Rita Hayworth, including a man in drag clothing.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: On a $25 million budget, principal photography took place over three months between June and August 1993. Filming regularly required up to 18-hour workdays, six days a week. Freeman described filming as tense, saying, "Most of the time, the tension was between the cast and director. I remember having a bad moment with the director, had a few of those." Freeman referred to Darabont's requiring multiple takes of scenes, which he considered had no discernible differences. For example, the scene where Andy first approaches Red to procure a rock hammer took nine hours to film, and featured Freeman throwing and catching a baseball with another inmate throughout it. The number of takes that were shot resulted in Freeman turning up to filming the following day with his arm in a sling. Freeman sometimes simply refused to do the additional takes. Robbins said that the long days were difficult. Darabont felt that making the film taught him a lot, "A director really needs to have an internal barometer to measure what any given actor needs." He found his most frequent struggles were with Deakins. Darabont favored more scenic shots, while Deakins felt that not showing the outside of the prison added a sense of claustrophobia, and it meant that when a wide scenic shot was used, it had more impact.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: Marvin spent five months scouting prisons across the United States and Canada, looking for a site that had a timeless aesthetic, and was completely abandoned, hoping to avoid the complexity of filming the required footage, for hours each day, in an active prison with the security difficulties that would entail. Marvin eventually chose the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, Ohio, to serve as the fictional Shawshank State Penitentiary in Maine, citing its Gothic-style stone and brick buildings. The facility had been shuttered three years earlier in 1990, due to inhumane living conditions.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: The 15-acre reformatory, housing its own power plant and farm, was partially torn down shortly after filming was completed, leaving the main administration building and two cellblocks. Several of the interior shots of the specialized prison facilities, such as the admittance rooms and the warden's office, were shot in the reformatory. The interior of the boarding room used by Brooks and Red was in the administration building; exterior shots of the boarding house were taken elsewhere. Internal scenes in the prison cellblocks were filmed on a sound stage built inside a nearby shuttered Westinghouse Electric factory. Since Darabont wanted the inmates' cells to face each other, almost all the cellblock scenes were shot on a purpose-built set housed in the Westinghouse factory, except for the scene featuring Elmo Blatch's admission of guilt for the crimes for which Andy was convicted. It was filmed in one of the actual prison's more confined cells. Scenes were also filmed in Mansfield, as well as neighboring Ashland, Ohio. The oak tree under which Andy buries his letter to Red was located near Malabar Farm State Park, in Lucas, Ohio; it was destroyed by winds in 2016.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: Just as a prison in Ohio stood in for a fictional one in Maine, the beach scene showing Andy and Red's reunion in Zihuatanejo, Mexico, was actually shot in the Caribbean on the island of Saint Croix, one of the U.S. Virgin Islands. The beach at 'Zihuatanejo' is the Sandy Point National Wildlife Refuge, a protected area for leatherback sea turtles. Scenes shot in Upper Sandusky included the prison wood shop scene where Red and his fellow inmates hear "The Marriage of Figaro" (the woodshop is now called the Shawshank Woodshop), and the opening court scene which was shot at the Wyandot County Courthouse. Other shooting locations included Pugh Cabin in Malabar Farm State Park, where Andy sits outside as his wife engages in an affair, Butler, Ohio, stood in for Buxton, Maine, and the Bissman Building in Mansfield served as the halfway house where Brooks stayed following his release.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: For the scene depicting Andy's escape from the prison, Darabont envisioned Andy using his miniature rock hammer to break into the sewage pipe, but he determined that this was not realistic. He opted instead to use a large piece of rock. While the film portrays the iconic scene of Andy escaping to freedom through a sewer pipe described as a "river of shit", Robbins crawls through a mixture of water, chocolate syrup, and sawdust. The stream into which Robbins emerges was actually certified toxic by a chemist according to production designer Terence Marsh. The production team dammed the stream to make it deeper and used chlorination to partially decontaminate it. Of the scene, Robbins said, "when you're doing a film, you want to be a good soldier—you don't want to be the one [who] gets in the way. So you will do things as an actor that are compromising to your physical health and safety." The scene was intended to be much longer and more dramatic, detailing Andy's escape across a field and onto a train, but with only a single night available to film the sequence, it was shortened to showing Andy standing triumphant in the water. Of his own work, Deakins considers the scene to be one of his least favorite, saying that he "over-lit" it. In response, Darabont disagreed with Deakins' self-assessment. He said that the time and precision taken by Deakins, and their limited filming schedule, meant he had to be precise in what he could film and how. In a 2019 interview, he stated that he regretted that this meant he could not film a close up of Robbins' face as he climbed down out of the hole from his cell.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: As for the scene where Andy rebelliously plays music over the prison announcement system, it was Robbins' idea for Andy to turn the music up and not shut it off. While in the finished film the inmates watch Rita Hayworth in "Gilda" (1946), they were originally intended to be watching Billy Wilder's "The Lost Weekend" (1945), a film about the dangers of alcohol. As the footage was too costly to procure from Paramount Pictures, producer Niki Marvin approached "The Shawshank Redemption"s domestic distribution rights-holder Columbia Pictures, which offered a list of lower-priced titles, one of which was "Gilda". As filming took place mainly in and around the prison, scenes were often shot in near chronological order respective of the different eras depicted throughout the story. This aided the actors' performances as their real-life relationships evolved alongside those of their respective characters. Darabont commented that the scene in which Andy tells Red about his dreams of going to Mexico, was one of the last filmed and one that he most revisited in recollecting on the film's production. He praised Robbins and Freeman for completing the scene in only a few takes.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: The final cut of the theatrically released film runs for 142 minutes, and was dedicated to Allen Greene, Darabont's former agent, who died during filming from AIDS. The film's first edit ran for nearly two and a half hours, which Glotzer considered "long", and several scenes were cut including a longer sequence of Red adjusting to life after incarceration; Darabont said that in test screenings the audience seemed to be getting impatient with the scene as they were already convinced that Red would not make it. Another scene cut for time showed a prison guard investigating Andy's escape tunnel; this was thought to slow down the action. The film originally had a cold open that played out Andy's crime, with his trial playing throughout the opening credits, but these scenes were edited together to create a more "punchy" opening. One scripted scene, which Darabont described as his best work, was left unfilmed because of the shooting schedule. In the scene, a dreaming Red is sucked into the poster of Rita Hayworth to find himself alone and insignificant on the Pacific shore, saying "I am terrified, there is no way home." Darabont said that he regretted being unable to capture the scene.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: In Darabont's original vision for the end of the film, Red is seen riding a bus towards the Mexican border, leaving his fate ambiguous. Glotzer insisted on including the scene of Red and Andy reuniting in Zihuatanejo. She said Darabont felt this was a "commercial, sappy" ending, but Glotzer wanted the audience to see them together. Castle Rock agreed to finance filming for the scene without requiring its inclusion, guaranteeing Darabont the final decision. The scene originally featured a longer reunion in which Andy and Red recited dialogue from their first meeting, but Darabont said it had a "golly-gee-ain't-we-cute" quality and excised it. The beach reunion was test audiences' favorite scene; both Freeman and Robbins felt it provided the necessary closure. Darabont agreed to include the scene after seeing the test audience reactions, saying: "I think it's a magical and uplifting place for our characters to arrive at the end of their long saga..."


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: The film's score was composed by Thomas Newman. He felt that it already elicited such strong emotions without music that he found it difficult to compose one that would elevate scenes without distracting from them. The piece, "Shawshank Redemption", plays during Andy's escape from Shawshank and originally had a three-note motif, but Darabont felt it had too much of a "triumphal flourish" and asked that it be toned down to a single-note motif. "So Was Red", played following Red's release from prison, and leading to his discovery of Andy's cache, became one of Newman's favorite pieces. The piece was initially written for a solo oboe, until Newman reluctantly agreed to add harmonica—a reference to the harmonica Red receives from Andy to continue his message of hope. According to Darabont, harmonica player Tommy Morgan "casually delivered something dead-on perfect on the first take", and this is heard in the finished film. Newman's score was so successful that excerpts from it were used in movie trailers for years afterwards.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: Leading up to its release, the film was test screened with the public. These were described as "through the roof", and Glotzer said they were some of the best she had seen. It was decided to mostly omit Stephen King's name from any advertising, as the studio wanted to attract a "more prestigious audience", who might reject a film from a writer known mostly for pulp fiction works such as "The Shining" and "Cujo".


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: Following early September premieres at the Renaissance Theatre in Mansfield, and the Toronto International Film Festival, "The Shawshank Redemption" began a limited North American release on September 23, 1994. During its opening weekend, the film earned $727,000 from 33 theaters—an average of $22,040 per theater. Following a Hollywood tradition of visiting different theaters on opening night to see the audiences view their film live, Darabont and Glotzer went to the Cinerama Dome, but found no one there. Glotzer claimed that the pair actually sold two tickets outside the theater with the promise that if the buyers did not like the film, they could ask Castle Rock for a refund. While critics praised the film, Glotzer believed that a lackluster review from the "Los Angeles Times" pushed crowds away. It received a wide release on October 14, 1994, expanding to a total of 944 theaters to earn $2.4 million—an average of $2,545 per theater—finishing as the number-nine film of the weekend, behind sex-comedy "Exit to Eden" ($3 million), and just ahead of the historical drama "Quiz Show" ($2.1 million), which was in its fifth week at the cinemas. "The Shawshank Redemption" closed in late November 1994, after 10 weeks with an approximate total gross of $16 million. It was considered a box-office bomb, failing to recoup its $25 million budget, not including marketing costs and the cinema exhibitors' cuts.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: The film was also competing with "Pulp Fiction" ($108 million), which also premiered October 14 following its Palme d'Or award win, and "Forrest Gump" ($330 million), which was in the middle of a successful 42-week theatrical run. Both films would become quotable cultural phenomena. A general audience trend towards action films starring the likes of Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger was also considered to work against the commercial success of "The Shawshank Redemption". Freeman blamed the title, saying it was unmemorable, while Robbins recalled fans asking: "What was that "Shinkshonk Reduction" thing?". Several alternative titles had been posited before the release due to concerns that it was not a marketable title. The low box office was also blamed on a lack of female characters to broaden the audience demographics, the general unpopularity of prison films, and the bleak tone used in its marketing.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: After being nominated for several Oscars in early 1995, the film was re-released between February and March, earning a further $12 million. In total, the film grossed $28.3 million in the United States and Canada, and $45 million from other markets for a worldwide total of $73.3 million. In the United States, it became the 51st-highest-grossing film of 1994, and the 21st-highest-grossing R-rated film of 1994.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: Despite its disappointing box-office returns, in what was then considered a risky move, Warner Home Video shipped 320,000 rental video copies throughout the United States in 1995. It went on to become one of the top rented films of the year. It was the seventh top video rental of 1995 in the United States. Positive recommendations and repeat customer viewings, and being well received by both male and female audiences, were considered key to the film's rental success.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: Ted Turner's Turner Broadcasting System had acquired Castle Rock in 1993, which enabled his television channel, TNT, to obtain the cable-broadcast rights to the film. According to Glotzer, because of the low box-office numbers, TNT could air the film at a very low cost, but still charge premium advertising rates. The film began airing regularly on the network in June 1997. Television airings of the film accrued record-breaking numbers, and its repeated broadcast was considered essential to turning the film into a cultural phenomenon after its poor box-office performance. Darabont felt the turning point for the film's success was the Academy Award nominations, saying "nobody had heard of the movie, and that year on the Oscar broadcast, they were mentioning this movie seven times". In 1996, the rights to "The Shawshank Redemption" were acquired by Warner Bros. Pictures, following the merger of its parent company Time Warner with the Turner Broadcasting System.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: In the United Kingdom, the film was watched by viewers on the subscription television channel Film4 in 2006, making it the year's second most-watched film on subscription digital television.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: By 2013, "The Shawshank Redemption" had aired on 15 basic cable networks, and in that year occupied 151 hours of airtime, rivaling "Scarface" (1983), and behind only "Mrs. Doubtfire" (1993). It was in the top 15% of movies among adults between the ages of 18 and 49 on the Spike, Up, Sundance TV, and Lifetime channels. Despite its mainly male cast, it was the most-watched movie on the female-targeted OWN network. In a 2014 "Wall Street Journal" article, based on the margins studios take from box office returns, home media sales, and television licensing, "The Shawshank Redemption" had made an estimated $100 million. Jeff Baker, then-executive vice president and general manager of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, said that the home video sales had earned about $80 million. While finances for licensing the film for television are unknown, in 2014, current and former Warner Bros. executives confirmed that it was one of the highest-valued assets in the studio's $1.5 billion library. That same year, Gunton said that by its tenth anniversary in 2004, he was still earning six-figure residual payments, and was still earning a "substantial income" from it, which was considered unusual so many years after its release.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: "The Shawshank Redemption" opened to generally positive reviews. Some reviewers compared the film to other well-received prison dramas, including: "Birdman of Alcatraz", "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", "Cool Hand Luke", and "Riot in Cell Block 11". Gene Siskel said that like "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", "The Shawshank Redemption" is an inspirational drama about overcoming overbearing authority. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: "Entertainment Weekly"s Owen Gleiberman said that Freeman makes the Red character feel genuine and "lived-in". Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" said that Freeman was quietly impressive, but lamented that Red's role in the film had limited range, restricted to observing Andy. She considered Freeman's commanding performance made him a much stronger figure than simply an observer. Maslin said that Freeman's performance was especially moving when describing how dependent Red had become on living within the prison walls. "Variety"s Leonard Klady suggested that Freeman had the "showier" role, allowing him "a grace and dignity that came naturally", without ever becoming banal, and "The Washington Post"s Desson Howe called Freeman a "master" of comedic and poignant cadence. Even Kenneth Turan's "Los Angeles Times" review, which Glotzer credited with derailing the film's box-office success, praised Freeman, saying his "effortless screen presence lends "Shawshank" the closest thing to credibility it can manage".


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: Of Robbins' performance, Gleiberman said that in his "laconic-good-guy, neo-Gary Cooper role, [Robbins] is unable to make Andy connect with the audience". Conversely, Maslin said that Andy has the more subdued role, but that Robbins portrays him intensely, and effectively depicts the character as he transitions from new prisoner to aged father figure, and Klady stated that his "riveting, unfussy ... precise, honest, and seamless" performance anchors the film. Howe said that while the character is "cheesily messianic" for easily charming everyone to his side, comparing him to "Forrest Gump goes to jail", Robbins exudes the perfect kind of innocence to sell the story. "The Hollywood Reporter" stated that both Freeman and Robbins gave outstanding, layered performances that imbued their characters with individuality, and "Rolling Stone"s Peter Travers said that the pair created something "undeniably powerful and moving". Gunton and Brown were deemed by Klady as "extremely credible in their villainy", while Howe countered that Gunton's warden was a clichéd character who extols religious virtues while having people murdered.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: Maslin called the film an impressive directorial debut that tells a gentle tale with a surprising amount of loving care, while Klady said the only failings came when Darabont focused for too long on supporting characters, or embellished a secondary story. "The Hollywood Reporter" said that both the directing and writing were crisp, while criticizing the film's long running time. Klady said that the length and tone, while tempered by humor and unexpected events, would dampen the film's mainstream appeal, but the story offered a fascinating portrait of the innate humanity of the inmates. Gleiberman disliked that the prisoners' crimes were overlooked to portray them more as good guys. Turan similarly objected to what he perceived as extreme violence and rape scenes, and making most of the prisoners seem like a "bunch of swell and softhearted guys" to cast the prison experience in a "rosy glow". Klady summarized the film as "estimable and haunting entertainment", comparing it to a rough diamond with small flaws, but Howe criticized it for deviating with multiple subplots, and pandering by choosing to resolve the story with Andy and Red's reunion, rather than leaving the mystery. Ebert noted that the story works because it is not about Andy as the hero, but how Red perceives him.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: Deakins' cinematography was roundly praised, with "The Hollywood Reporter" calling it "foreboding" and "well-crafted", and Travers saying "the everyday agonies of prison life are meticulously laid out ... you can almost feel the frustration and rage seeping into the skin of the inmates". Gleiberman praised the choice of scenery, writing "the moss-dark, saturated images have a redolent sensuality; you feel as if you could reach out and touch the prison walls". "The Hollywood Reporter" said of Newman's score, "at its best moments, alights with radiant textures and sprightly grace notes, nicely emblematic of the film's central theme", and Klady described it as "the right balance between the somber and the absurd".


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards in 1995, the most for a Stephen King film adaptation: Best Picture (Marvin), Best Actor (Freeman), Best Adapted Screenplay (Darabont), Best Cinematography (Deakins), Best Film Editing (Richard Francis-Bruce), Best Sound (Robert J. Litt, Elliot Tyson, Michael Herbick, and Willie D. Burton), and Best Original Score (Newman, his first Academy Award nomination). It did not win in any category. It received two Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture for Freeman, and Best Screenplay for Darabont.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: Robbins and Freeman were both nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role at the inaugural Screen Actors Guild Awards in 1995. Darabont was nominated for a Directors Guild of America award in 1994 for Best Director of a feature film, and a Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Deakins won the American Society of Cinematographers award for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography, while producer Niki Marvin was nominated for a 1994 Golden Laurel Award by the Producers Guild of America.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: Darabont later adapted and directed two other King stories, "The Green Mile" (1999) and "The Mist" (2007). In a 2016 interview, King said that "The Shawshank Redemption" was his favorite adaptation of his work, alongside "Stand by Me".


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: The oak tree, under which Andy leaves a note for Red directing him to Zihuatanejo, became a symbol of hope for its role in the film, and is considered iconic. In 2016, "The New York Times" reported that the tree attracted thousands of visitors annually. The tree was partially destroyed on July 29, 2011, when it was split by lightning, and news of the damage was reported by U.S. and international publications. The tree was completely felled by strong winds on or around July 22, 2016, and its vestiges were cut down in April 2017. The remains were turned into "The Shawshank Redemption" memorabilia including rock hammers and magnets.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: The prison site, which was planned to be fully torn down after filming, became a tourist attraction. The Mansfield Reformatory Preservation Society, a group of enthusiasts of the film, purchased the building and site from Ohio for one dollar in 2000 and took up maintaining it as a historical landmark, both as its purpose as a prison and as the filming site. A 2019 report estimated the attraction to be earning $16 million in annual revenue. Many of the rooms and props remain there, including the false pipe through which Andy escapes, and a portion of the oak tree from the finale, after it was damaged in 2011. The surrounding area is also visited by fans, while local businesses market "Shawshanwiches" and Bundt cakes in the shape of the prison. According to the Mansfield/Richland County Convention and Visitors Bureau (later renamed Destination Mansfield), tourism in the area had increased every year since "The Shawshank Redemption" premiered, and in 2013 drew in 18,000 visitors and over $3 million to the local economy. As of 2019, Destination Mansfield operates the Shawshank Trail, a series of 15 marked stops around locations related to the film across Mansfield, Ashland, Upper Sandusky, and St Croix. The trail earned $16.9 million in revenue in 2018.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: In late August 2014, a series of events was held in Mansfield to celebrate the film's 20th anniversary including a screening of the film at the Renaissance Theatre, a bus tour of certain filming locations, and a cocktail party at the reformatory. Cast from the film attended some of the events, including Gunton, Scott Mann, Renee Blaine, and James Kisicki. The 25th anniversary was similarly celebrated in August 2019. Guests included Darabont, Blaine, Mann, Gunton, Alfonso Freeman, Bellows, Rolston, Claire Slemmer, and Frank Medrano. Darabont stated that only at this event, the first time he had returned to Mansfield, was he able to realize the lasting impact of the film, stating, "It is a very surreal feeling to be back all these years later and people are still talking about it."


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: Contemporary review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 91% approval rating from 81 critics, with an average rating of 8.40/10. The consensus reads, ""The Shawshank Redemption" is an uplifting, deeply satisfying prison drama with sensitive direction and fine performances." The film also has a score of 81 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 21 critics indicating "universal acclaim".


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: In 1999, film critic Roger Ebert listed "Shawshank" on his list of "The Great Movies". The film has been nominated for, or appeared on, the American Film Institute's lists celebrating the top 100 film or film-related topics. In 1998, it was nominated for AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies list, and was number 72 on the 2007 revised list, outranking "Forrest Gump" (76) and "Pulp Fiction" (94). It was also number 23 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers (2006) list charting inspiring films. The characters of Andy and Warden Norton received nominations for AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains list; AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes list for "Get busy livin', or get busy dyin; AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs list for "Sull'aria ... che soave zeffiretto" (from "The Marriage of Figaro"); and AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores for Newman's work.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: In 2005, the Writers Guild of America listed Darabont's screenplay at number 22 on its list of the 101 greatest screenplays, and in 2006, Film4 listed it number 13 on its list of 50 Films to See Before You Die. In 2014, "The Shawshank Redemption" was named Hollywood's fourth-favorite film, based on a survey of 2,120 Hollywood-based entertainment industry members; entertainment lawyers skewed the most towards the film. In 2017, "The Daily Telegraph" named it the 17th-best prison film ever made, and "USA Today" listed it as one of the 50 best films of all time. In 2019, "GamesRadar+" listed its ending as one of the best of all time.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: "The Shawshank Redemption" appeared on several lists of the greatest films of the 1990s, by outlets including: "Paste" and "NME" (2012), "Complex" (2013), CHUD.com (2014), MSN (2015), "TheWrap", "Maxim", and "Rolling Stone" (all 2017).


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: In November 2014, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences celebrated the film's 20th anniversary with a special one-night screening at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, California. In 2015, the film was selected by the United States Library of Congress to be preserved in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Darabont responded: "I can think of no greater honor than for "The Shawshank Redemption" to be considered part of our country's cinematic legacy." "Variety" said that the word "Shawshank" could be used to instantly convey images of a prison.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: The significant and enduring public appreciation for the film has often been difficult for critics to define. In an interview, Freeman said, "About everywhere you go, people say, "The Shawshank Redemption"—greatest movie I ever saw" and that such praise "Just comes out of them". Robbins said, "I swear to God, all over the world—all over the world—wherever I go, there are people who say, 'That movie changed my life' ". In a separate interview, Stephen King said, "If that isn't the best [adaptation of my works], it's one of the two or three best, and certainly, in moviegoers' minds, it's probably the best because it generally rates at the top of these surveys they have of movies. ... I never expected anything to happen with it." In a 2014 "Variety" article, Robbins claimed that South African politician Nelson Mandela told him about his love for the film, while it has been cited as a source of inspiration by several sportsmen including Jonny Wilkinson (UK), Agustín Pichot (Argentina), Al Charron (Canada), and Dan Lyle (USA), and Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York. Gunton said he had encountered fans in Morocco, Australia, South America, Germany, France, and Bora Bora. Director Steven Spielberg said that the film was "a chewing-gum movie—if you step on it, it sticks to your shoe". Speaking on the film's 25th anniversary, Darabont said that older generations were sharing it with younger generations, contributing to its longevity.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: It has been the number-one film on IMDb's user-generated Top 250 since 2008, when it surpassed "The Godfather", having remained at or near the top since the late 1990s. In the United Kingdom, readers of "Empire" voted the film as the best of the 1990s, the greatest film of all time in 2006, and it placed number four on "Empire"s 2008 list of "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time" and their 2017 list of "The 100 Greatest Movies". In March 2011, the film was voted by BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 1Xtra listeners as their favorite film of all time. It regularly appears on "Empire"s top 100 films, was named the greatest film to not win the Academy Award for Best Picture in a 2013 poll by Sky UK (it lost to "Forrest Gump"), and ranked as Britain's favorite film in a 2015 YouGov poll. When the British Film Institute analyzed the demographic breakdown of the YouGov poll, it noted that "The Shawshank Redemption" was not the top-ranked film in any group, but was the only film to appear in the top 15 of every age group, suggesting it is able to connect with every polled age group, unlike "Pulp Fiction" which fared better with younger voters, and "Gone with the Wind" (1939) with older voters.


title: The Shawshank Redemption

text: A 2017 poll conducted by Gatwick Airport also identified the film as the fourth-best to watch while in flight. When film critic Mark Kermode interviewed a host of United States moviegoers, they compared it to a "religious experience". It was also voted as New Zealand's favorite film in a 2015 poll. Lasting fan appreciation has led to it being considered one of the most beloved films of all time.


title: Blade Runner

text: Blade Runner is a 1982 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott, and written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples. Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos, it is an adaptation of Philip K. Dick's 1968 novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" The film is set in a dystopian future Los Angeles of 2019, in which synthetic humans known as "replicants" are bio-engineered by the powerful Tyrell Corporation to work on space colonies. When a fugitive group of advanced replicants led by Roy Batty (Hauer) escapes back to Earth, burnt-out cop Rick Deckard (Ford) reluctantly agrees to hunt them down.


title: Blade Runner

text: "Blade Runner" initially underperformed in North American theaters and polarized critics; some praised its thematic complexity and visuals, while others critiqued its slow pacing and lack of action. It later became a cult film, and has since come to be regarded as one of the all-time best science fiction films. Hailed for its production design depicting a high-tech but decaying future, "Blade Runner" is often regarded as both a leading example of neo-noir cinema as well as a foundational work of the cyberpunk genre. The film's soundtrack, composed by Vangelis, was nominated in 1982 for a BAFTA and a Golden Globe as best original score.


title: Blade Runner

text: The film has influenced many science fiction films, video games, anime, and television series. It brought the work of Philip K. Dick to the attention of Hollywood, and several of his works later became films such as "Total Recall" (1990), "Minority Report" (2002), and "A Scanner Darkly" (2006). In 1993, it was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".


title: Blade Runner

text: Seven different versions of "Blade Runner" exist as a result of controversial changes requested by studio executives. A director's cut was released in 1992 after a strong response to test screenings of a workprint. This, in conjunction with the film's popularity as a video rental, made it one of the earliest movies to be released on DVD. In 2007, Warner Bros. released "The Final Cut", a 25th-anniversary digitally remastered version. This is the only version over which Scott retained artistic control.


title: Blade Runner

text: The film is the first of the franchise of the same name. A sequel, directed by Denis Villeneuve and titled "Blade Runner 2049", was released in October 2017 alongside a trilogy of short films covering the thirty-year span between the two films' settings. The anime series "" was released in 2021.


title: Blade Runner

text: In 2019 Los Angeles, former police officer Rick Deckard is detained by Officer Gaff, who likes to make origami figures, and is brought to his former supervisor, Bryant. Deckard, whose job as a "blade runner" was to track down bioengineered humanoids known as replicants and terminally "retire" them, is informed that four replicants are on Earth illegally. Deckard begins to leave, but Bryant ambiguously threatens him and Deckard stays. The two watch a video of a blade runner named Holden administering the Voight-Kampff test, which is designed to distinguish replicants from humans based on their emotional responses to questions. The test subject, Leon, shoots Holden on the second question. Bryant wants Deckard to retire Leon and three other Nexus-6 replicants: Roy Batty, Zhora, and Pris.


title: Blade Runner

text: Bryant has Deckard meet with the CEO of the company that creates the replicants, Eldon Tyrell, so he can administer the test on a Nexus-6 to see if it works. Tyrell expresses his interest in seeing the test fail first and asks him to administer it on his assistant Rachael. After a much longer than standard test, Deckard concludes privately to Tyrell that Rachael is a replicant who believes she is human. Tyrell explains that she is an experiment who has been given false memories to provide an "emotional cushion," and that she has no knowledge of her true nature.


title: Blade Runner

text: In searching Leon's hotel room, Deckard finds photos and a scale from the skin of an animal, which is later identified as a synthetic snake scale. Roy and Leon investigate a replicant eye-manufacturing laboratory and learn of J. F. Sebastian, a gifted genetic designer who works closely with Tyrell. Deckard returns to his apartment where Rachael is waiting. She tries to prove her humanity by showing him a family photo, but Deckard reveals that her memories are implants from Tyrell's niece, and she leaves in tears. Meanwhile, Pris locates Sebastian and manipulates him to gain his trust.


title: Blade Runner

text: A photograph from Leon's apartment and the snake scale lead Deckard to a strip club, where Zhora works. After a confrontation and chase, Deckard kills Zhora. Bryant also orders him to retire Rachael, who has disappeared from the Tyrell Corporation. After Deckard spots Rachael in a crowd, he is ambushed by Leon, who knocks the gun out of Deckard's hand and beats him. As Leon is about to kill Deckard, Rachael saves him by using Deckard's gun to kill Leon. They return to Deckard's apartment and, during a discussion, he promises not to track her down. As Rachael abruptly tries to leave, Deckard restrains her and forces her to kiss him, and she ultimately relents.


title: Blade Runner

text: Deckard leaves Rachael at his apartment and departs to search for the remaining replicants. Roy arrives at Sebastian's apartment and tells Pris that the other replicants are dead. Sebastian reveals that because of a genetic premature aging disorder, his life will be cut short, like the replicants that were built with a four-year lifespan. Roy uses Sebastian to gain entrance to Tyrell's penthouse. He demands more life from his maker, which Tyrell says is impossible. Roy confesses that he has done "questionable things" but Tyrell dismisses this, praising Roy's advanced design and accomplishments in his short life. Roy kisses Tyrell and then kills him by gouging out his eyes. Sebastian tries to flee and is later reported dead.


title: Blade Runner

text: At Sebastian's apartment, Deckard is ambushed by Pris, but he kills her as Roy returns. Roy's body begins to fail as the end of his lifespan nears. He chases Deckard through the building and onto the roof. Deckard tries to jump onto another roof but is left hanging on the edge. Roy makes the jump with ease and, as Deckard's grip loosens, Roy hoists him onto the roof to save him. Before Roy dies, he laments that his memories "will be lost in time, like tears in rain". Gaff arrives and compliments Deckard, also reminding him that Rachael will not live. Deckard returns to his apartment to retrieve Rachael. While escorting her to the elevator, he notices a small origami unicorn on the floor. He recalls Gaff's words, but leaves with Rachael anyway.


title: Blade Runner

text: Interest in adapting Philip K. Dick's novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" developed shortly after its 1968 publication. Director Martin Scorsese was interested in filming the novel, but never optioned it. Producer Herb Jaffe optioned it in the early 1970s, but Dick was unimpressed with the screenplay written by Herb's son Robert, saying, "Jaffe's screenplay was so terribly done ... Robert flew down to Santa Ana to speak with me about the project. And the first thing I said to him when he got off the plane was, 'Shall I beat you up here at the airport, or shall I beat you up back at my apartment?


title: Blade Runner

text: The screenplay by Hampton Fancher was optioned in 1977. Producer Michael Deeley became interested in Fancher's draft and convinced director Ridley Scott to film it. Scott had previously declined the project, but after leaving the slow production of "Dune", wanted a faster-paced project to take his mind off his older brother's recent death. He joined the project on February 21, 1980, and managed to push up the promised Filmways financing from US$13 million to $15 million. Fancher's script focused more on environmental issues and less on issues of humanity and religion, which are prominent in the novel, and Scott wanted changes. Fancher found a cinema treatment by William S. Burroughs for Alan E. Nourse's novel "The Bladerunner" (1974), titled "Blade Runner (a movie)". Scott liked the name, so Deeley obtained the rights to the titles. Eventually, he hired David Peoples to rewrite the script and Fancher left the job over the issue on December 21, 1980, although he later returned to contribute additional rewrites.


title: Blade Runner

text: Having invested over $2.5 million in pre-production, as the date of commencement of principal photography neared, Filmways withdrew financial backing. In ten days Deeley had secured $21.5 million in financing through a three-way deal between the Ladd Company (through Warner Bros.), the Hong Kong-based producer Sir Run Run Shaw and Tandem Productions.


title: Blade Runner

text: Dick became concerned that no one had informed him about the film's production, which added to his distrust of Hollywood. After Dick criticized an early version of Fancher's script in an article written for the Los Angeles "Select TV Guide", the studio sent Dick the Peoples rewrite. Although Dick died shortly before the film's release, he was pleased with the rewritten script and with a 20-minute special effects test reel that was screened for him when he was invited to the studio. Despite his well-known skepticism of Hollywood in principle, Dick enthused to Scott that the world created for the film looked exactly as he had imagined it. He said, "I saw a segment of Douglas Trumbull's special effects for "Blade Runner" on the KNBC news. I recognized it immediately. It was my own interior world. They caught it perfectly." He also approved of the film's script, saying, "After I finished reading the screenplay, I got the novel out and looked through it. The two reinforce each other so that someone who started with the novel would enjoy the movie and someone who started with the movie would enjoy the novel." The motion picture was dedicated to Dick. Principal photography of "Blade Runner" began on March 9, 1981, and ended four months later.


title: Blade Runner

text: In 1992, Ford revealed, ""Blade Runner" is not one of my favorite films. I tangled with Ridley." Apart from friction with the director, Ford also disliked the voiceovers: "When we started shooting it had been tacitly agreed that the version of the film that we had agreed upon was the version without voiceover narration. It was a nightmare. I thought that the film had worked without the narration. But now I was stuck re-creating that narration. And I was obliged to do the voiceovers for people that did not represent the director's interests." "I went kicking and screaming to the studio to record it." The narration monologs were written by an uncredited Roland Kibbee.


title: Blade Runner

text: In 2006, Scott was asked "Who's the biggest pain in the arse you've ever worked with?", he replied: "It's got to be Harrison ... he'll forgive me because now I get on with him. Now he's become charming. But he knows a lot, that's the problem. When we worked together it was my first film up and I was the new kid on the block. But we made a good movie." Ford said of Scott in 2000: "I admire his work. We had a bad patch there, and I'm over it." In 2006 Ford reflected on the production of the film saying: "What I remember more than anything else when I see "Blade Runner" is not the 50 nights of shooting in the rain, but the voiceover ... I was still obliged to work for these clowns that came in writing one bad voiceover after another." Ridley Scott confirmed in the summer 2007 issue of "Total Film" that Harrison Ford contributed to the "Blade Runner" Special Edition DVD, and had already recorded his interviews. "Harrison's fully on board", said Scott.


title: Blade Runner

text: The Bradbury Building in downtown Los Angeles served as a filming location, and a Warner Bros. backlot housed the 2019 Los Angeles street sets. Other locations included the Ennis-Brown House and the 2nd Street Tunnel. Test screenings resulted in several changes, including adding a voice-over, a happy ending, and the removal of a Holden hospital scene. The relationship between the filmmakers and the investors was difficult, which culminated in Deeley and Scott being fired but still working on the film. Crew members created T-shirts during filming saying, "Yes Guv'nor, My Ass" that mocked Scott's unfavorable comparison of U.S. and British crews; Scott responded with a T-shirt of his own, "Xenophobia Sucks" making the incident known as the T-shirt war.


title: Blade Runner

text: Casting the film proved troublesome, particularly for the lead role of Deckard. Screenwriter Hampton Fancher envisioned Robert Mitchum as Deckard and wrote the character's dialogue with Mitchum in mind. Director Ridley Scott and the film's producers spent months meeting and discussing the role with Dustin Hoffman, who eventually departed over differences in vision. Harrison Ford was ultimately chosen for several reasons, including his performance in the "Star Wars" films, Ford's interest in the "Blade Runner" story, and discussions with Steven Spielberg who was finishing "Raiders of the Lost Ark" at the time and strongly praised Ford's work in the film. Following his success in films like "Star Wars" (1977) and "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981), Ford was looking for a role with dramatic depth. According to production documents, several actors were considered for the role, including Gene Hackman, Sean Connery, Jack Nicholson, Paul Newman, Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Peter Falk, Nick Nolte, Al Pacino and Burt Reynolds.


title: Blade Runner

text: One role that was not difficult to cast was Rutger Hauer as Roy Batty, the violent yet thoughtful leader of the replicants. Scott cast Hauer without having met him, based solely on Hauer's performances in Paul Verhoeven's movies Scott had seen ("Katie Tippel", "Soldier of Orange", and "Turkish Delight"). Hauer's portrayal of Batty was regarded by Philip K. Dick as "the perfect Batty – cold, Aryan, flawless". Of the many films Hauer made, "Blade Runner" was his favorite. As he explained in a live chat in 2001, ""Blade Runner" needs no explanation. It just . All of the best. There is nothing like it. To be part of a real which changed the world's thinking. It's awesome." Hauer rewrote his character's "tears in rain" speech himself and presented the words to Scott on set prior to filming.


title: Blade Runner

text: "Blade Runner" used a number of then-lesser-known actors: Sean Young portrays Rachael, an experimental replicant implanted with the memories of Tyrell's niece, causing her to believe she is human; Nina Axelrod auditioned for the role. Daryl Hannah portrays Pris, a "basic pleasure model" replicant; Stacey Nelkin auditioned for the role, but was given another part in the film, which was ultimately cut before filming. Debbie Harry turned down the role of Pris. Casting Pris and Rachael was challenging, requiring several screen tests with Morgan Paull playing the role of Deckard. Paull was cast as Deckard's fellow bounty hunter Holden based on his performances in the tests. Brion James portrays Leon Kowalski, a combat and laborer replicant, and Joanna Cassidy portrays Zhora, an assassin replicant.


title: Blade Runner

text: Edward James Olmos portrays Gaff. Olmos drew on diverse ethnic sources to help create the fictional "Cityspeak" language his character uses in the film. His initial address to Deckard at the noodle bar is partly in Hungarian and means, "Horse dick [bullshit]! No way. You are the Blade ... Blade Runner." M. Emmet Walsh portrays Captain Bryant, a rumpled, hard-drinking and underhanded police veteran typical of the film noir genre. Joe Turkel portrays Dr. Eldon Tyrell, a corporate mogul who built an empire on genetically manipulated humanoid slaves. William Sanderson was cast as J. F. Sebastian, a quiet and lonely genius who provides a compassionate yet compliant portrait of humanity. J. F. sympathizes with the replicants, whom he sees as companions, and he shares their shorter lifespan due to his rapid aging disease. Joe Pantoliano had earlier been considered for the role. James Hong portrays Hannibal Chew, an elderly geneticist specializing in synthetic eyes, and Hy Pyke portrayed the sleazy bar owner Taffey Lewis – in a single take, something almost unheard-of with Scott, whose drive for perfection resulted at times in double-digit takes.


title: Blade Runner

text: Ridley Scott credits Edward Hopper's painting "Nighthawks" and the French science fiction comics magazine "Métal Hurlant", to which the artist Jean "Moebius" Giraud contributed, as stylistic mood sources. He also drew on the landscape of "Hong Kong on a very bad day" and the industrial landscape of his one-time home in northeast England. The visual style of the movie is influenced by the work of futurist Italian architect Antonio Sant'Elia. Scott hired Syd Mead as his concept artist; like Scott, he was influenced by "Métal Hurlant". Moebius was offered the opportunity to assist in the pre-production of "Blade Runner", but he declined so that he could work on René Laloux's animated film "Les Maîtres du temps" – a decision that he later regretted. Production designer Lawrence G. Paull and art director David Snyder realized Scott's and Mead's sketches. Douglas Trumbull and Richard Yuricich supervised the special effects for the film, and Mark Stetson served as chief model maker.


title: Blade Runner

text: "Blade Runner" has numerous similarities to Fritz Lang's "Metropolis", including a built-up urban environment, in which the wealthy literally live above the workers, dominated by a huge building – the Stadtkrone Tower in "Metropolis" and the Tyrell Building in "Blade Runner". Special effects supervisor David Dryer used stills from "Metropolis" when lining up "Blade Runner"s miniature building shots.


title: Blade Runner

text: The extended end scene in the original theatrical release shows Rachael and Deckard traveling into daylight with pastoral aerial shots filmed by director Stanley Kubrick. Ridley Scott contacted Kubrick about using some of his surplus helicopter aerial photography from "The Shining".


title: Blade Runner

text: "Spinner" is the generic term for the fictional flying cars used in the film. A spinner can be driven as a ground-based vehicle, and take off vertically, hover, and cruise much like vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft. They are used extensively by the police as patrol cars, and wealthy people can also acquire spinner licenses. The vehicle was conceived and designed by Syd Mead who described the spinner as an aerodyne – a vehicle which directs air downward to create lift, though press kits for the film stated that the spinner was propelled by three engines: "conventional internal combustion, jet, and anti-gravity". A spinner is on permanent exhibit at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in Seattle, Washington. Mead's conceptual drawings were transformed into 25 vehicles by automobile customizer Gene Winfield; at least two were working ground vehicles, while others were light-weight mockups for crane shots and set decoration for street shots. Two of them ended up at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, but were later destroyed, and a few others remain in private collections.


title: Blade Runner

text: The Voight-Kampff machine is a fictional interrogation tool, originating from the novel (where it is spelled "Voigt-Kampff"). The Voight-Kampff is a polygraph-like machine used by blade runners to determine whether an individual is a replicant. It measures bodily functions such as respiration, blush response, heart rate and eye movement in response to questions dealing with empathy.


title: Blade Runner

text: The "Blade Runner" soundtrack by Vangelis is a dark melodic combination of classic composition and futuristic synthesizers which mirrors the film noir retro-future envisioned by Ridley Scott. Vangelis, fresh from his Academy Award-winning score for "Chariots of Fire", composed and performed the music on his synthesizers. He also made use of various chimes and the vocals of collaborator Demis Roussos. Another memorable sound is the tenor sax solo "Love Theme" by British saxophonist Dick Morrissey, who performed on many of Vangelis's albums. Ridley Scott also used "Memories of Green" from the Vangelis album "See You Later, "an orchestral version of which Scott would later use in his film "Someone to Watch Over Me".


title: Blade Runner

text: Along with Vangelis's compositions and ambient textures, the film's soundscape also features a track by the Japanese ensemble Nipponia – "Ogi no Mato" or "The Folding Fan as a Target" from the Nonesuch Records release "Traditional Vocal and Instrumental Music" – and a track by harpist Gail Laughton from "Harps of the Ancient Temples" on Laurel Records.


title: Blade Runner

text: Despite being well received by fans and critically acclaimed and nominated in 1982 for a BAFTA and Golden Globe as best original score, and the promise of a soundtrack album from Polydor Records in the end titles of the film, the release of the official soundtrack recording was delayed for over a decade. There are two official releases of the music from "Blade Runner". In light of the lack of a release of an album, the New American Orchestra recorded an orchestral adaptation in 1982 which bore little resemblance to the original. Some of the film tracks would, in 1989, surface on the compilation "Vangelis: Themes", but not until the 1992 release of the "Director's Cut" version would a substantial amount of the film's score see commercial release.


title: Blade Runner

text: These delays and poor reproductions led to the production of many bootleg recordings over the years. A bootleg tape surfaced in 1982 at science fiction conventions and became popular given the delay of an official release of the original recordings, and in 1993 "Off World Music, Ltd" created a bootleg CD that would prove more comprehensive than Vangelis' official CD in 1994. A set with three CDs of "Blade Runner"-related Vangelis music was released in 2007. Titled "Blade Runner Trilogy", the first disc contains the same tracks as the 1994 official soundtrack release, the second features previously unreleased music from the movie, and the third disc is all newly composed music from Vangelis, inspired by, and in the spirit of the movie.


title: Blade Runner

text: The film's special effects are generally recognized to be among the best of all time, using the available (non-digital) technology to the fullest. Special effects engineers, who worked on the film, are often praised for the innovative technology they used to produce and design certain aspects of those visuals. In addition to matte paintings and models, the techniques employed included multipass exposures. In some scenes, the set was lit, shot, the film rewound, and then rerecorded over with different lighting. In some cases this was done 16 times in all. The cameras were frequently motion controlled using computers. Many effects used techniques which had been developed during the production of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind".


title: Blade Runner

text: "Blade Runner" was released in 1,290 theaters on June 25, 1982. That date was chosen by producer Alan Ladd Jr. because his previous highest-grossing films ("Star Wars" and "Alien") had a similar opening date (May 25) in 1977 and 1979, making the 25th of the month his "lucky day". "Blade Runner" grossed reasonably good ticket sales in its opening weekend; earning $6.1 million during its first weekend in theaters. The film was released close to other major science-fiction and fantasy releases such as "The Thing", "", "Conan the Barbarian" and "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial", which affected its commercial success.


title: Blade Runner

text: Several versions of "Blade Runner" have been shown. The original workprint version (1982, 113 minutes) was shown for audience test previews in Denver and Dallas in March 1982. Negative responses to the previews led to the modifications resulting in the U.S. theatrical version. The workprint was shown as a director's cut without Scott's approval at the Los Angeles Fairfax Theater in May 1990, at an AMPAS showing in April 1991, and in September and October 1991 at the Los Angeles NuArt Theater and the San Francisco Castro Theatre. Positive responses pushed the studio to approve work on an official director's cut. A San Diego Sneak Preview was shown only once, in May 1982, and was almost identical to the U.S. theatrical version but contained three extra scenes not shown in any other version, including the 2007 Final Cut.


title: Blade Runner

text: Two versions were shown in the film's 1982 theatrical release: the U.S. theatrical version (117 minutes), known as the original version or "Domestic Cut" (released on Betamax, CED Videodisc and VHS in 1983, and on LaserDisc in 1987), and the "International Cut" (117 minutes), also known as the "Criterion Edition" or "uncut version", which included more violent action scenes than the U.S. version. Although initially unavailable in the U.S. and distributed in Europe and Asia via theatrical and local Warner Home Video releases, the "International Cut" was later released on VHS and The Criterion Collection Laserdisc in North America, and re-released in 1992 as a "10th Anniversary Edition".


title: Blade Runner

text: Ridley Scott's "Director's Cut" (1992, 116 minutes) had significant changes from the theatrical version including the removal of Deckard's voice-over, the re-insertion of the unicorn sequence, and the removal of the studio-imposed happy ending. Scott provided extensive notes and consultation to Warner Bros. through film preservationist Michael Arick, who was put in charge of creating the "Director's Cut".


title: Blade Runner

text: Scott's definitive "The Final Cut" (2007, 117 minutes) was released by Warner Bros. theatrically on October 5, 2007, and subsequently released on DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray Disc in December 2007. This is the only version over which Scott had complete artistic and editorial control.


title: Blade Runner

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an 89% approval rating based on 126 reviews, with an average rating of 8.50/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Misunderstood when it first hit theaters, the influence of Ridley Scott's mysterious, neo-noir "Blade Runner" has deepened with time. A visually remarkable, achingly human sci-fi masterpiece." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 84 out of 100 based on 15 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".


title: Blade Runner

text: Initial reactions among film critics were mixed. Some wrote that the plot took a back seat to the film's special effects and did not fit the studio's marketing as an action and adventure film. Others acclaimed its complexity and predicted it would stand the test of time. Negative criticism in the United States cited its slow pace. Sheila Benson from the "Los Angeles Times" called it "Blade Crawler", and Pat Berman in "The State" and "Columbia Record" described it as "science fiction pornography". Pauline Kael praised "Blade Runner" as worthy of a place in film history for its distinctive sci-fi vision, yet criticized the film's lack of development in "human terms". "Ares" magazine said, "Misunderstood by audiences and critics alike, it is by far the best "science fiction" film of the year."


title: Blade Runner

text: Academics began analyzing the film almost as soon as it was released. One of the first books on the film was Paul M. Sammon's "Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner" (1996), which dissects all the details concerning the film making. He was followed by Scott Bukatman's "Blade Runner" and other books and academic articles. In "Postmodern Metanarratives: Blade Runner and Literature in the Age of Image", Décio Torres Cruz analyzes the philosophical and psychological issues and the literary influences in "Blade Runner". He examines the film's cyberpunk and dystopic elements by establishing a link between the Biblical, classical and modern traditions and the postmodern aspects in the film's collage of several literary texts.


title: Blade Runner

text: The boom in home video formats helped establish a growing cult around the film, which scholars have dissected for its dystopic aspects, questions regarding "authentic" humanity, ecofeminist aspects and use of conventions from multiple genres. Popular culture began to reassess its impact as a classic several years after it was released. Roger Ebert praised the visuals of both the original and the "Director's Cut" and recommended it for that reason; however, he found the human story clichéd and a little thin. He later added "The Final Cut" to his "Great Movies" list. Critic Chris Rodley and Janet Maslin theorized that "Blade Runner" changed cinematic and cultural discourse through its image repertoire and subsequent influence on films. In 2012, "Time" film critic Richard Corliss surgically analyzed the durability, complexity, screenplay, sets and production dynamics from a personal, three-decade perspective. Denis Villeneuve, who directed the sequel, "Blade Runner 2049", cites the film as a huge influence for him and many others.


title: Blade Runner

text: It has also been noted for its postmodernist approach and that it contributes to the historical development of modern dystopia in film. Furthermore, the futuristic version of Los Angeles has been widely discussed by academics with some comparing it to Milton's descriptions of hell in "Paradise Lost". A 2019 retrospective in the BBC argued that elements of the film's socio-political themes remained prescient in the real year of the film's setting, such as its depiction of climate change. From a more philosophical perspective, Alison Landsberg described Scott's direction of the film as a "prosthetic memory"—an action that has never happened and appears to be divorced from lived experience, yet it defines personhood and identity within the wider Blade Runner universe.


title: Blade Runner

text: The film operates on multiple dramatic and narrative levels. It employs some of the conventions of film noir, among them the character of a "femme fatale"; narration by the protagonist (in the original release); chiaroscuro cinematography; and giving the hero a questionable moral outlook – extended to include reflections upon the nature of his own humanity. It is a literate science fiction film, thematically enfolding the philosophy of religion and moral implications of human mastery of genetic engineering in the context of classical Greek drama and hubris. It also draws on Biblical images, such as Noah's flood, and literary sources, such as "Frankenstein" and William Blake. Although Scott said any similarity was merely coincidental, fans claimed that the chess game between Sebastian and Tyrell was based on the famous Immortal Game of 1851.


title: Blade Runner

text: "Blade Runner" delves into the effects of technology on the environment and society by reaching to the past, using literature, religious symbolism, classical dramatic themes, and "film noir" techniques. This tension between past, present, and future is represented in the "retrofitted" future depicted in the film, one which is high-tech and gleaming in places but decayed and outdated elsewhere. In an interview with "The Observer" in 2002, director Ridley Scott described the film as "extremely dark, both literally and metaphorically, with an oddly masochistic feel". He also said that he "liked the idea of exploring pain" in the wake of his brother's death: "When he was ill, I used to go and visit him in London, and that was really traumatic for me."


title: Blade Runner

text: A sense of foreboding and paranoia pervades the world of the film: corporate power looms large; the police seem omnipresent; vehicle and warning lights probe into buildings; and the consequences of huge biomedical power over the individual are explored –


title: Blade Runner

text: especially regarding replicants' implanted memories. Control over the environment is exercised on a vast scale, and goes hand in hand with the absence of any natural life; for example, artificial animals stand in for their extinct predecessors. This oppressive backdrop explains the frequently referenced migration of humans to "off-world" (extraterrestrial) colonies. Eyes are a recurring motif, as are manipulated images, calling into question the nature of reality and our ability to accurately perceive and remember it.


title: Blade Runner

text: These thematic elements provide an atmosphere of uncertainty for "Blade Runner"s central theme of examining humanity. In order to discover replicants, an empathy test is used, with a number of its questions focused on the treatment of animals – seemingly an essential indicator of one's "humanity". Replicants will not respond the same way humans would, showing a lack of concern. The film goes so far as to question if Deckard might be a replicant, in the process asking the audience to re-evaluate what it means to be human.


title: Blade Runner

text: The question of whether Deckard is intended to be a human or a replicant has been an ongoing controversy since the film's release. Both Michael Deeley and Harrison Ford wanted Deckard to be human, while Hampton Fancher preferred ambiguity. Ridley Scott has stated that in his vision, Deckard is a replicant. Deckard's unicorn-dream sequence, inserted into Scott's "Director's Cut" and concomitant with Gaff's parting gift of an origami unicorn, is seen by many as showing that Deckard is a replicant – because Gaff could have retrieved Deckard's implanted memories. The interpretation that Deckard is a replicant is challenged by others who believe the unicorn imagery shows that the characters, whether human or replicant, share the same dreams and recognize their affinity, or that the absence of a decisive answer is crucial to the film's main theme. The film's inherent ambiguity and uncertainty, as well as its textual richness, have permitted multiple interpretations.


title: Blade Runner

text: While not initially a success with North American audiences, "Blade Runner" was popular internationally and garnered a cult following. The film's dark style and futuristic designs have served as a benchmark and its influence can be seen in many subsequent science fiction films, video games, anime, and television programs. For example, Ronald D. Moore and David Eick, the producers of the re-imagining of "Battlestar Galactica", have both cited "Blade Runner" as one of the major influences for the show.


title: Blade Runner

text: The film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 1993 and is frequently taught in university courses. In 2007, it was named the second-most visually influential film of all time by the Visual Effects Society. The film has also been the subject of parody, such as the comics "Blade Bummer" by "Crazy" comics, "Bad Rubber" by Steve Gallacci, and the "Red Dwarf" 2009 three-part miniseries "". The anime series "Psycho-Pass" by Production I.G was also highly influenced by the movie.


title: Blade Runner

text: "Blade Runner" continues to reflect modern trends and concerns, and an increasing number of critics consider it one of the greatest science fiction films of all time. It was voted the best science fiction film ever made in a 2004 poll of 60 eminent world scientists. "Blade Runner" is also cited as an important influence to both the style and story of the "Ghost in the Shell" franchise, which itself has been highly influential to the future-noir genre. "Blade Runner" has been very influential to the cyberpunk movement. It also influenced the cyberpunk derivative biopunk, which revolves around biotechnology and genetic engineering.


title: Blade Runner

text: The dialogue and music in "Blade Runner" has been sampled in music more than any other film of the 20th century. The 2009 album "I, Human" by Singaporean band Deus Ex Machina makes numerous references to the genetic engineering and cloning themes from the film, and even features a track titled "Replicant".


title: Blade Runner

text: "Blade Runner" is cited as a major influence on Warren Spector, designer of the video game "Deus Ex", which displays evidence of the film's influence in both its visual rendering and plot. Indeed, the film's look – and in particular its overall darkness, preponderance of neon lights and opaque visuals – are easier to render than complicated backdrops, making it a popular reference point for video game designers. It has influenced adventure games such as the 2012 graphical text adventure "Cypher", "Rise of the Dragon", "Snatcher", the "Tex Murphy" series, "Beneath a Steel Sky", "", "Bubblegum Crisis" video games (and their original anime), the role-playing game "Shadowrun", the first-person shooter "Perfect Dark", the shooter game "Skyhammer", and the "Syndicate" series of video games.


title: Blade Runner

text: The logos of Atari, Bell, Coca-Cola, Cuisinart, Pan Am, and RCA, all market leaders at the time, were prominently displayed as product placement in the film, and all experienced setbacks after the film's release, leading to suggestions of a "Blade Runner" curse. Coca-Cola and Cuisinart recovered, and Tsingtao beer was also featured in the film and was more successful after the film than before.


title: Blade Runner

text: The design of Tesla's Cybertruck was inspired by the film. Prior to its release Elon Musk promised that it would "look like something out of Blade Runner". Besides referring to the truck as the "Blade Runner Truck", Musk chose to debut the truck in order to coincide with the film's setting of November 2019. The film's art designer Syd Mead praised the truck and said he was "flattered" by the homage to "Blade Runner".


title: Blade Runner

text: Before filming began, "Cinefantastique" magazine commissioned Paul M. Sammon to write a special issue about "Blade Runner"s production which became the book "Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner". The book chronicles "Blade Runner"s evolution, focusing on film-set politics, especially the British director's experiences with his first American film crew; of which producer Alan Ladd, Jr. has said, "Harrison wouldn't speak to Ridley and Ridley wouldn't speak to Harrison. By the end of the shoot Ford was 'ready to kill Ridley', said one colleague. He really would have taken him on if he hadn't been talked out of it." "Future Noir" has short cast biographies and quotations about their experiences as well as photographs of the film's production and preliminary sketches. A second edition of "Future Noir" was published in 2007, and additional materials not in either print edition have been published online.


title: Blade Runner

text: Philip K. Dick refused a $400,000 offer to write a "Blade Runner" novelization, saying: "[I was] told the cheapo novelization would have to appeal to the twelve-year-old audience" and it "would have probably been disastrous to me artistically". He added, "That insistence on my part of bringing out the original novel and not doing the novelization – they were just furious. They finally recognized that there was a legitimate reason for reissuing the novel, even though it cost them money. It was a victory not just of contractual obligations but of theoretical principles." "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" was eventually reprinted as a tie-in, with the film poster as a cover and the original title in parentheses below the "Blade Runner" title. Additionally, a novelization of the movie entitled "Blade Runner: A Story of the Future" by Les Martin was released in 1982. Archie Goodwin scripted the comic book adaptation, "", published in September 1982, which was illustrated by Al Williamson, Carlos Garzon, Dan Green, and Ralph Reese, and lettered by Ed King.


title: Blade Runner

text: Blue Dolphin Enterprises published the film's screenplay combined with selected production storyboards as "The Illustrated Blade Runner" (June 1982); a book of original production artwork by Syd Mead, Mentor Huebner, Charles Knode, Michael Kaplan, and Ridley Scott as "Blade Runner Sketchbook" (1982); and "The Blade Runner Portfolio" (1982), a collection of twelve photographic prints, similar to the artist portfolios released by their Schanes & Schanes imprint.


title: Blade Runner

text: There are two video games based on the film, both titled "Blade Runner": one from 1985, an action-adventure side-scroller for Commodore 64, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, and Amstrad CPC by CRL Group PLC, which is marked as "a video game interpretation of the film score by Vangelis" rather than of the film itself (due to licensing issues); and another from 1997, a point-and-click adventure for PC by Westwood Studios. The 1997 game features a non-linear plot based in the "Blade Runner" world, non-player characters that each ran in their own independent AI, and an unusual pseudo-3D engine (which eschewed polygonal solids in favor of voxel elements) that did not require the use of a 3D accelerator card to play the game. Eldon Tyrell, Gaff, Leon, Rachael, Chew, J. F. Sebastian and Howie Lee appear, and their voice files are recorded by the original actors, with the exception of Gaff, who is replaced by Javier Grajeda (as Victor Gardell) and Howie Lee, who is replaced by Toru Nagai. The player assumes the role of McCoy, another replicant-hunter working at the same time as Deckard.


title: Blade Runner

text: The television film (and later series) "Total Recall 2070" was initially planned as a spin-off of the film "Total Recall" (based on Philip K. Dick's short story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale"), but was produced as a hybrid of "Total Recall" and "Blade Runner". Many similarities between "Total Recall 2070" and "Blade Runner" were noted, as well as apparent influences on the show from Isaac Asimov's "The Caves of Steel" and the TV series "Holmes & Yoyo".


title: Blade Runner

text: A direct sequel was released in 2017, titled "Blade Runner 2049", with Ryan Gosling alongside Ford in the starring roles. It entered production in mid-2016 and is set decades after the first film. Harrison Ford reprised his role as Rick Deckard. The film won two Academy Awards, for cinematography and visual effects.


title: Blade Runner

text: The world of "Blade Runner" has also come to be explored in animation. "Blade Runner 2049" was preceded by the release of three short films that served as prequels, where the chronological first, "Blade Runner Black Out 2022", was anime (the other two, "" and "", were live action, not animated).


title: Blade Runner

text: In November 2021, a Japanese-American anime television series called "" was released. The series tells the story of a female replicant protagonist, rather than that of a male Blade Runner one.


title: Blade Runner

text: Dick's friend K. W. Jeter wrote three authorized "Blade Runner" novels that continue Rick Deckard's story, attempting to resolve the differences between the film and "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" These are "" (1995), "" (1996), and "" (2000)


title: Blade Runner

text: "Blade Runner" cowriter David Peoples wrote the 1998 action film "Soldier", which he referred to as a "sidequel" or spiritual successor to the original film; the two are set in a shared universe. A bonus feature on the Blu-ray for "Prometheus", the 2012 film by Scott set in the "Alien" universe, states that Eldon Tyrell, CEO of the "Blade Runner" Tyrell Corporation, was the mentor of Guy Pearce's character Peter Weyland. In 2022, Amazon announced a "Blade Runner 2049" sequel series would be produced. On October 12, 2022, an apparent official approval to actually make a "Blade Runner 2099" TV series was reported.


title: Pokémon (video game series)

text: The core games are released in generations, each with different Pokémon, storylines, and characters. Remakes of the games are usually released around a decade after the original versions for the latest console at the time. While the main series consists of RPGs developed by Game Freak, many spin-off games based on the series have been developed by various companies, encompassing other genres such as action role-playing, puzzle, fighting, and digital pet games.


title: Pokémon (video game series)

text: Pokémon is estimated to be the largest media franchise, with successful anime series, movies, and merchandise, with spin-off game "Pokémon Go" having crossed 1billion mobile game downloads worldwide. By November 24, 2017, more than 300 million "Pokémon" games had been sold worldwide on handheld and home consoles, across 76 titles, including spin-offs. , the series has sold over units worldwide. This makes "Pokémon" the third best-selling video game franchise, behind Nintendo's own "Mario" franchise, and "Tetris".


title: Pokémon (video game series)

text: All of the licensed "Pokémon" properties overseen by The Pokémon Company are divided roughly by generation. These generations are roughly chronological divisions by release; when an official sequel in the main role-playing game series is released that features new Pokémon, characters, and possibly new gameplay concepts, that sequel is considered the start of a new generation of the franchise. The main games and their spin-offs, the anime, manga, and trading card game are all updated with the new Pokémon properties each time a new generation begins. The franchise began its ninth and current generation with "Pokémon Scarlet and Violet", which were released worldwide for the Nintendo Switch on November 18, 2022.


title: Pokémon (video game series)

text: The original "Pokémon" games are Japanese role-playing video games (RPGs) with an element of strategy and were created by Satoshi Tajiri for the Game Boy.


title: Pokémon (video game series)

text: The "Pokémon" series began with the release of "Pocket Monsters Red" and "Green" for the Game Boy in Japan. When these games proved popular, an enhanced "Blue" version was released sometime after, and the "Blue" version was reprogrammed as "Pokémon Red" and "Blue" for international release. The original "Green" version was not released outside Japan. Afterwards, a second enhanced remake, "Pokémon Yellow", was released to use the color palette of the Game Boy Color and more of a stylistic resemblance to the popular "Pokémon" anime. This first generation of games introduced the original 151 species of Pokémon (in National Pokédex order, encompassing all Pokémon from Bulbasaur to Mew), as well as the basic game concepts of capturing, training, battling and trading Pokémon with both computer and human players. These versions of the games take place within the fictional Kanto region, though the name "Kanto" was not used until the second generation. Spin-off first-generation titles include "Pokémon Pinball"; an adaptation of the "Pokémon Trading Card Game" for Game Boy Color; an on-rails photography simulator for Nintendo 64 titled "Pokémon Snap"; a Nintendo 64 "Pokémon"-themed adaptation of "Tetris Attack", "Pokémon Puzzle League". A 3D Nintendo 64 incarnation of the handhelds' battle system, "Pokémon Stadium"; and a co-starring role for several species in the Nintendo 64 fighting game "Super Smash Bros.". At the Nintendo Space World in 2000, a game was revealed briefly with Meowth and Team Rocket singing a song. This was one of the earliest introductions of the Pokémon Togepi and Bellossom. This game was called "Meowth's Party", but was not developed into a playable game. Instead, the song/video was played at the end of an episode of "Pokémon", and a CD was made for retail in Japan for a limited time. This is the first time Missingno. was discovered.


title: Pokémon (video game series)

text: The second generation of "Pokémon" video games began in 1999 with the Japanese release of "Pokémon Gold" and "Silver" for the Game Boy Color, with Australia and North America getting the game in October 2000 and European release date of April 2001. Like the previous generation, an enhanced version, titled "Pokémon Crystal," was later released.


title: Pokémon (video game series)

text: This generation introduced 100 new species of Pokémon (starting with Chikorita and ending with Celebi), for a total of 251 Pokémon to collect, train, and battle. New gameplay features include a day-and-night system (reflecting the time of the day in the real world) which influences events in the game; full use of the Game Boy Color's color palette; an improved interface and upgraded inventory system; better balance in the collection of Pokémon and their moves, statistics and equipable items (a new addition); the addition of two new Pokémon types (Dark and Steel) to better balance the strengths and weaknesses of each Pokémon; Pokémon breeding; and a new region named Johto. After exploring Johto, the player can travel east to explore the adjacent Kanto region.


title: Pokémon (video game series)

text: Spin-off games in the second-generation include "Pokémon Puzzle Challenge", the adaptation of "Pokémon Puzzle League"—a puzzle game created by Zoppf industries—made specifically for the Game Boy Color; the Nintendo 64 pet simulator "Hey You, Pikachu!"; the "Pokémon Stadium" sequel, "Pokémon Stadium 2", for Nintendo 64; several "Pokémon" mini-games for the e-Reader; and a co-starring role for several Pokémon species in the "Super Smash Bros." sequel "Super Smash Bros. Melee" for the GameCube. The Pokémon mini was a handheld game console released in December 2001 in Japan and 2002 in Europe and North America.


title: Pokémon (video game series)

text: This generation started a trend among even-numbered generations, giving the Pokémon Eevee new type evolutions beyond the original three of the first generation.


title: Pokémon (video game series)

text: "Pokémon" entered its third generation with the 2002 release of "Pokémon Ruby" and "Sapphire" for Game Boy Advance and continued with the Game Boy Advance remakes of "Pokémon Red" and "Green", "Pokémon FireRed" and "LeafGreen" ("Red" and "Green" representing the original Japanese first generation games; territories outside Japan instead saw releases of "Red" and "Blue"). An enhanced version of "Pokémon Ruby" and "Sapphire" titled "Pokémon Emerald" followed after.


title: Pokémon (video game series)

text: The third generation introduced 135 new Pokémon (starting with Treecko and ending with Deoxys) for a total of 386 species. It also features a more visually detailed environment compared to previous games, "natures" which affect Pokémon stats, a new 2-on-2 Pokémon battling mechanic, a special ability system applying to each Pokémon in battle, the Pokémon Contest sub-game, the new region of Hoenn, the ability to select the protagonist's gender and Secret Bases: customizable "rooms" where the player can display items they have collected in-game and battle against real friends. Secret Bases can be found in bushes, trees, or small cave openings in landscapes by using the Pokémon move, Secret Power, which can be taught to virtually all Pokémon. However, this generation also garnered some criticism for leaving out several gameplay features, including the day-and-night system introduced in the previous generation (which was removed due to internal-battery save problems), and it was also the first installment that encouraged the player to collect merely a selected assortment of the total number of Pokémon rather than every existing species (202 out of 386 species are catchable in the "Ruby" and "Sapphire" versions). Around this time that the franchise was regaining its popularity and it managed to ship over 100 million games worldwide.


title: Pokémon (video game series)

text: Third-generation spin-off titles include "" for Game Boy Advance; for Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS; "Pokémon Dash", "Pokémon Trozei!" and "Pokémon Ranger" for Nintendo DS; "Pokémon Channel" and "" for GameCube; and two role-playing games for the GameCube, consisting of the games "Pokémon Colosseum" and "".


title: Pokémon (video game series)

text: In 2006, Japan began the fourth generation of the franchise with the release of "Pokémon Diamond" and "Pearl" for Nintendo DS. The games were released in North America on April 22, 2007, and in Australia on June 21, 2007. The game was released in the UK and Europe on July 27, 2007. Other main series games in the fourth generation include "Pokémon Platinum", a director's cut version of "Diamond" and "Pearl" in the same vein as "Pokémon Yellow", "Crystal", and "Emerald". It was released for the Nintendo DS in Japan on September 13, 2008, in North America on March 22, 2009, and in Australia and Europe on May 14, 2009 and May 22, 2009 respectively. It was also announced that "Pokémon Gold" and "Silver" would be remade for the Nintendo DS as "Pokémon HeartGold" and "SoulSilver". Released in Japan on September 12, 2009, the games were later released to North America, Australia, and Europe during March 2010.