The story behind the 35-year gap between Blade Runner’s first and second episodes is almost as ornate as the dusky flame-lit cityscapes of Ridley Scott’s 1982 opus of dystopian neon-noir. When the movie first hit cinemas in a cut featuring an ill-advised Chandleresque voiceover from Harrison Ford and a frankly laughable tacked-on happy ending that ruined every last trace of enigma over replicant Rachel’s future, it received mixed reviews from critics.

There’s an ironic parallel between the powers that be in Scott’s film, who deny the humanity of Roy Batty and his gang of replicants, and reviewers of the time, who seem to have felt that Blade Runner, while looking amazing, lacked something in the way of soul. Roger Ebert described the film as “thin in its human story” while Pauline Kael criticised its development “in human terms”. The movie barely made its $33.8m production budget back at the box office, according to Box Office Mojo.

While the film began to pick up a cult following among fans from the moment it first screened, critical opinion only really began to shift in 1993, when Warner Bros released the Director’s Cut, and zoomed into top gear in 2007, when Scott’s own Final Cut (the only version over which the film-maker had full control, though only minutely different from its predecessor) was released. By this point the film had already been voted the best science-fiction movie of all time, by scientists (no less) in a poll for the Guardian. This newspaper’s Xan Brooks called Blade Runner “Scott’s most ambitious, fully realised film” apart from Alien, at the time of the Final Cut’s release. It is arguable, in the light of Blade Runner 2049’s rapturous reception from critics, that the British director’s second major contribution to sci-fi cinema may now have an even more lasting effect on the future of Hollywood than his first.

Given the glacial pace of Blade Runner’s development, it is also tempting to wonder how many other sci-fi bombs that have been languishing for years in relative ignominy might yet find traction in the not-so-distant future. The story of the futuristic noir’s slow rise to the cultural pinnacle suggests it can sometimes take a generation for studios to accept that opinion has changed; that there is suddenly a demand for fresh stories set in the same universe.

If that’s so, can we please have a sequel to Pete Travis and Alex Garland’s Dredd for starters? The 2000AD adaptation in 2012 was a smash at the UK box office but struggled in the US, and failed to get the sequel it was so obviously crying out for. Garland has since proven himself the coming man of sci-fi with the Oscar-nominated Ex-Machina, and the idea of future instalments set in this brutally minimalistic version of the comics’ Mega City One could be even more addictive than Slo-Mo, the time perception-freezing narcotic of choice for its lowlife denizens. Star Karl Urban has spent a fair bit of time canvassing for a followup, yet so far to no avail. It’s probably wishful thinking to imagine that Blade Runner 2049’s reception could change minds at studio Lionsgate, but here’s hoping.

Cult classic … Ethan Hawke in Andrew Niccol’s Gattaca. Photograph: Moviestore/Rex Shutterstock

Joss Whedon’s Serenity really ought to be another matter entirely. This is the film-maker who made The Avengers, the fifth-highest-grossing movie of all time at the global box office with more than $1.5bn in receipts, and who has just been given the chance to rescue DC’s similarly momentous superhero epic Justice League following Zack Snyder’s unfortunate departure. If he’s not trusted by studios, then no one should be. Yet Whedon has an entire space opera galaxy ready to be exploited in the form of the universe he created for cruelly curtailed TV show Firefly and its big-screen sequel, 2005’s Serenity. Darker and less fantastical than Star Wars or Guardians of the Galaxy, it’s a cosmos without aliens that somehow ends up being more intriguing for its barbarous and cold-blooded vision of the future as a 22nd century-set paean to the old west frontier. And if they can roll out Harrison Ford for new Star Wars and Blade Runner movies, there surely ought to be a place for Nathan Fillion’s moody Captain Malcolm Reynolds in future big-screen efforts.

It’s possible to argue that the current hype around Blade Runner 2049 should also encourage studio executives to take a second look at the unheralded work of Australian film-maker Andrew Niccol, whose Aldous Huxley-inspired 1997 thriller Gattaca remains an under-viewed cult classic. Set in a world where eugenics have led to humans being judged according to the quality of their genetic code, its failure at the box office shouldn’t mask the movie’s potential as the jumping off point for dozens of potential sequels. Niccol’s In Time, about a society where the human body clock simply stops if one runs out of cash, is another underrated allegorical study of societal polarisation between the haves and the have nots.

Fright-fest … John Carpenter’s They Live. Photograph: Courtesy Everett Collection / Rex Features

Alex Proyas’ gothic curiosity Dark City is one more startling vision of the future that never quite found its audience, while John Carpenter fright-fest They Live could also do with being dug out and expanded upon – even if these two latter films perhaps lack the imaginative scope of some of the others I’ve mentioned. Perhaps you have your own suggestions?

The point is, that with Blade Runner 2049 set to carry all before it, the rules have changed forever. It no longer matters if a given movie was a box-office dud when it first emerged, for there’s every chance it will still emerge as a cultural touchstone, albeit if one is prepared to hang on a mere 35 years for society to catch up.