Futuristic Duncan Jones film Mute to become a graphic novel first

When I first heard the news that producers were looking to develop a sequel or prequel to BLADE RUNNER, the first non-Ridley Scott person I thought of to direct was Duncan Jones. But Jones has been working on his own BLADE RUNNER style film, MUTE, since before MOON was released and now looks to be returning to that property, though it won’t be as a film.

Jones tells Gordon and the Whale that after discussing the long-gestating property with his producer, “we have decided that we’re going to release MUTE as a graphic novel.” What that doesn’t mean is that he’s abandoning all hope of making MUTE as a feature film. The plan, at least how Jones envisions it, is to release the MUTE graphic novel while he works on his third as-yet-unannounced film. The hope is that the graphic novel will prove a built-in audience for the ambitious project to either studios or financiers.

As for whether he would be interested in BLADE RUNNER itself instead of his own BLADE RUNNER-esque film, Jones said, “You know what a big fan I am of BLADE RUNNER…but there’s all this news on the Internet lately about the rights to BLADE RUNNER being bought up…I’m interested in doing a city-based science fiction film. And [MUTE] is going to do all the geeky things I would want.”

Jones seems to indicate that MUTE is satisfying his urge but doesn’t seem to rule out the possibility of actually directing BLADE RUNNER should it be offered.

Jones hasn’t offered much up about his upcoming third film other than it will be another sci-fi project and act as a sort of trilogy alongside MOON and SOURCE CODE.