David Webb Peoples

I know.

It eventually fell to director Ridley Scott, working alongside writers Hampton Fancher and David Peoples to bring the adaptation to fruition in the early 80s.

Right.

But much like our previous examples with Die Hard and First Blood, the film they ultimately produced was not particularly faithful to the intricate, bizarre plot details of Philip K. Dick's book.

I, this is, I'm sorry, this is an aside.

Uh, the other writer on Blade Runner was David Webb Peoples.

The first one?

Yes.

I see.

Uh, okay.

So yeah, okay, Hampton Fancher might be the heart and soul of that movie, but there's a reason that movie fucked, [laughs] okay? David Webb Peoples is great writer.

He wrote, uh, Unforgiven, for instance.

Hence the title.

So Ridley Scott and his screenwriters, Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, look at this deeply strange philosophical book about empathy boxes and fake sheep, and they say, "Yeah, we're not doing any of that."

They completely amputated Mercerism.

Mercerism.They dropped the obsession with pet ownership.

Yeah, he thought they just turned it into a generic shoot 'em up action movie.

It wasn't until David Peoples was brought in for a massive, like, page one rewrite-

Right

... and Ridley Scott truly took the reins of the world building, that the movie started to find its actual identity.

That's right.

When David Webb Peoples-

Yes, [laughs] go on

... who, uh, co-wrote Blade Runner, had the idea for-

Clint Eastwood liked this so much that he was gonna both star and direct a version of this.

That's fascinating.

It's fascinating because David Webb Peoples, director of Spider-Man-

Yes [laughs]

How can criticism hurt? How much can it hurt? It can hurt so much when you've worked so hard and waited so long for something to come out like Ashley and I have in this book.

For example, David Webb Peoples wrote the script for Unforgiven in 1975.

And it

took 17 years to get to,

So I think a lot of people look fondly back on Event Horizon, and he followed that up with Soldier starring Kurt Russell.

That one was scripted by David Peoples, one of the screenwriters for Blade Runner, but I've never seen that one.

That one, I'm to understand, kind of failed to find an audience really.

Mm-hmm.

Yastrzemski moves over to second.

And now, up at the plate is Dwight Evans, who is batting for David Peoples of Russell Road in Blenford, Massachusetts.

Evans batting for David Peoples, P-E-E-B-L-E-S, Peoples of Blanford, Massachusetts.

Runner on second, one man out.

He popped up the second his first time, a fine catch made on him by Willie Randolph out in shallow right field.