Duncan Jones wants to do his Blade Runner homage next

January 17th 2011, 7:46pm

Back in 2009 it was thought that the next project for Duncan Jones would be MUTE. This was the script he was trying to get Sam Rockwell to star in. Sadly, Rockwell did not want to play a villain so after a few meetings, MOON was born. One of the producers said that MUTE was about, “a woman whose disappearance causes a mystery for her partner, a mute bartender. When she disappears, he has to go up against the city’s gangsters.”

In a recent interview with a site called We Got This Covered (via /Film), Jones said that MUTE was in a state of limbo and he’s been having trouble getting it made. The director is actually hoping to do a homage to BLADE RUNNER as his next project.

Here’s what Jones had to say:

“Well it’s [MUTE] in a bit of a limbo actually. I’ve always loved the script and felt it was a film worth making, but it’s a tricky one. It’s a sci-fi film, and one of the drafts of the scripts got leaked a while back. The reaction was mixed. Most people didn’t get the fact that yes it is sci-fi but it’s a futurist film. It’s a thriller that happens to take place in the future, it’s not some amazing piece of technology that ya know the world is depending upon and the whole story revolves around some particular piece of technology or some sci-fi hook.”

“That was the whole idea, to tell a film that can be based in any period, but just HAPPENS to take place in the future. And it’s been very difficult to basically pitch that in a way where people understand why it needs to be done that way. People just say, why can’t it be in a contemporary setting? But no, it’s about mood and atmosphere as much as anything else. It’s also quite dark so it’s been a tough sell. Also, it’s not a big film, it has been designed to be sort of a smaller and more independent film. Budget wise, it’s in between Moon and Source Code.”

“I just need to get away from it for a while. I’ll come back to it one day and hopefully it’ll work the way I see it working. In the meantime, I have another project that I’m very excited about. It will address what people expect from sci-fi films but still does what I want it to do, and still has the heart and energy that I’d wanna see in a sci-fi film.”

Sir, I am ready. Bring it.