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) films exploring incidents that occurred between the events of "Blade Runner" and "Blade Runner 2049". The first short film released in the lead up to "Blade Runner 2049", "2036: Nexus Dawn", is directed by Luke Scott, who had previously developed short films connecting the events of Ridley Scott films "Prometheus" and "". The film stars Jared Leto as Niander Wallace and Benedict Wong as Lawmaker, following him as he presents a new Nexus-9 replicant to the lawmakers in an attempt to have a prohibition on replicants lifted. A second film, "2048: Nowhere to Run", also directed by Scott, follows Nexus-8