LA Real Estate Mogul Plans to Light Up Blade Runner-Style Billboards

Wasn't Blade Runner supposed to depict a bleak, dystopian future? Someone really should tell Sonny Astani. The 55-year-old real estate mogul is planning to bring 2019 Los Angeles to life in the form of two 14-story animated billboards modeled on Ridley Scott's opening sequence. "I saw Blade Runner at least five times," says Astani, whose empire encompasses thousands of Southern California apartment units. "The billboards always struck me." Astani's signs will appear on the sides of adjacent condo towers being constructed in downtown LA. The idea, pending city approval, is to install hundreds of rows of LEDs, each spaced 6 inches apart, across the buildings' floor-to-ceiling windows. Residents will be able to see out, but viewed from a distance the pixel-like lights will coalesce into an image. Now if only he could get some kind of android workforce to build them.