Blade Runner type Movie

Ridley Scott is a busy man. The director, 76, is currently putting the final touches on Exodus: Gods and Kings, starring Christian Bale and Joel Edgerton (in theaters Dec. 12). But last week, he told EW a little about his next project, The Martian starring Matt Damon, which is slated for November 2015. “It’s a very good book,” says Scott of Andy Weir’s novel, which was originally self-published in 2012 before being republished by Crown this year. (You can read EW’s review of The Martian here.) The story follows Mark Watney, an astronaut who becomes stranded and assumed dead on Mars after a deadly storm. “It’s like Robinson Crusoe—if you were marooned or shipwrecked, how do you survive?”

Scott says he’s already storyboarded the film and is ready to begin shooting in November. “I think I’m going to shoot in Budapest,” he says. “And we’ll probably shoot in Wadi Rum for Mars. I like Wadi Rum—it’s the best view I’ve ever seen of what could be Mars.” (The alien-looking location in Jordan has been used in Lawrence of Arabia and, more recently, for some of Scott’s Exodus.)

Of course, there are multiple projects that Scott’s due to direct—like the highly anticipated Blade Runner sequel co-written with Hampton Fancher (who helped adapt the Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? into Scott’s 1982 film) and Michael Green (Green Lantern). It’s no secret that Ridley Scott wants Harrison Ford to return. In May, Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson, co-founders and CEO of Alcon, put out this statement: “We believe that Hampton Fancher and Michael Green have crafted with Ridley Scott an extraordinary sequel to one of the greatest films of all time. We would be honored, and we are hopeful, that Harrison will be part of our project,”

“It’s written and it’s damn good,” Scott says of the Blade Runner sequel. “Of course it involves Harrison, who is a survivor after all these years—despite the accident,” he says with a laugh (referring, no doubt, to Ford’s Star Wars injury). “So yes, that will happen.” (Ford’s camp has not yet responded on Ford’s commitment to the project.)

When pressed as to when that might happen, Scott says, “Probably after [The Martian.]” This just leaves the matter of yet another highly anticipated sequel for Prometheus. “That’s the problem,” Scott says. “I’ve got a lot of ducks in a row. But they’re all written.”