Because HE dragged what was a relatively obscure work into the world conscience, reimagined it, gave it a whole new audience and made it a pop culture icon for eternity. Good enough?
Would you rather watch a direct adaptation of Do androids dream of electric sheep or Blade Runner?
ADDITION : I guarantee Phillip K Dick`s family are eternally grateful to Sir Ridley Scott for his efforts.
The process started long before Scott and many people were involved.......... nothing was dragged, it was developed with intent.
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.
[40] Producer
Herb Jaffe optioned it in the early 1970s, but Dick was unimpressed with the screenplay written by Herb's son Robert: "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?'"
[41]
The screenplay by
Hampton Fancher was optioned in 1977.
[42] 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.
[43] 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).
[nb 2] Scott liked the name, so Deeley obtained the rights to the titles.
[44] 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.
[45]
Having invested over $2.5 million in pre-production,
[46] 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.
[47]
Dick became concerned that no one had informed him about the film's production, which added to his distrust of Hollywood.
[48] 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.
[49] 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.
[32] He said, "I saw a segment of
Douglas Trumbull's special effects for
Blade Runner on the KNBC-TV 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."
[50] The motion picture was dedicated to Dick.
[51] Principal photography of
Blade Runner began on March 9, 1981, and ended four months later.
[52]