William Blake in popular culture all cited Blake as one of their major inspirations. Comic designer William Blake Everett claims to be descended from Blake. In his film "Mean Streets" (1973), Martin Scorsese refers to Blake's poem "The Tyger" when a young pet tiger makes Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro take refuge atop a couch, paralleling the grit and innocence of life in the city. A variation on a verse from Blake's "America a Prophecy" appears in Ridley Scott's science fiction film "Blade Runner" (1982), spoken by Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer). This has been interpreted as a way of linking Batty to Blake's mythic
Blade Runner (franchise) in the same year. From 1995 to 2000, three novels serving as sequels to both "Blade Runner" and the original novel were written by K. W. Jeter, a friend of Dick's. A film sequel to "Blade Runner", "Blade Runner 2049", was released in 2017. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of "Blade Runner" in 2012, a short film was released, and in the lead up to the release of "Blade Runner 2049", several more short films detailing events that occurred between 2019 and 2049 were released. Interest in adapting Philip K. Dick's novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" developed shortly