Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was published in 1968 and the film rights to the novel were sold shortly after. Throughout the 1970s, numerous screenwriters attempted to fashion the novel into a working film script, but Philip K. Dick was not impressed with the results. By 1977, an approved script was finished, and British director Ridley Scott officially joined the project in 1980, 22 years after the novel’s publication. Scott was a relatively new director but had achieved commercial and critical success with his 1979 sci-fi film Alien. Dick was pleased with the test footage shot by Scott that demonstrated the special effects that would be used in the film. Dick felt that the special effects closely matched the world he imagined when writing his novel.

Scott requested numerous changes to the script, the most prominent of which was the title. Instead of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Scott preferred to use a phrase that he borrowed from an unproduced film plot outline by William S. Burroughs. The Burroughs project adapted a 1974 novel by Alan E. Nourse titled The Bladerunner. After securing the rights to this undeveloped film, Scott was able to change the title of the ongoing project from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? to the now-infamous Blade Runner.