PHILIP K. DICK ON ‘BLADE RUNNER’
With unflinching honesty, the author of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? discusses its cinematic adaptation and the shock of reading the original screenplay, which made him think that he had died and been condemned to eternal torture.
by James Van Hise
Philip K. Dick is one of the unique writers working in the science-fiction genre. Over the past thirty years he has produced an impressive and varied body of work. No other author’s books quite match his distinctive style.
One source of altered reality met another when Dick and Hollywood formed an uneasy alliance in order to bring the author’s startling visions to the screen. His 1966 short story, “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale,” is being produced at the Walt Disney Studios from a Dan O’Bannon screenplay, under the title Total Recall. His 1953 short story, “Second Variety,” has also been adapted by O’Bannon for Virginia Palance and Capital Pictures and will be filmed under the title Claw. The first Dick adaptation to make it to the screen will be director Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, based on Dick’s 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and starring Harrison Ford.
One source of altered reality met another when Dick and Hollywood formed an uneasy alliance in order to bring the author’s startling visions to the screen. His 1966 short story, “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale,” is being produced at the Walt Disney Studios from a Dan O’Bannon screenplay, under the title Total Recall. His 1953 short story, “Second Variety,” has also been adapted by O’Bannon for Virginia Palance and Capital Pictures and will be filmed under the title Claw. The first Dick adaptation to make it to the screen will be director Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, based on Dick’s 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and starring Harrison Ford.