Blade Runner 2049
sci-fi revivals are Big Business these days,
when everything from Alien to, uh, Alien Nation is being eta reactivated or reimagined for modern eyeballs. Arguably the daddy of them all, though, is Blade Runner, a futuristic goliath so distinct it’s taken 30 years for somebody to crack a continuation. that “somebody” is Arrival director denis Villeneuve, a lifelong
Blade Runner fan and Oscar nominee who’s overseeing the biggest movie of his career with Blade Runner 2049. “my producers are finding it fun to remind me that it will be one of the most expensive R-rated independent feature films ever made,” he joked recently.
pledging to “take care” of the age-old “is deckard a Replicant?” headscratcher, Villeneuve nabbed one of the hottest actors in hollywood to head up his franchise reboot, with Ryan gosling playing lApd Officer k, who stumbles across a disturbing secret that could destroy civilisation. Suitably unnerved, he goes hunting for ex-blade Runner Rick deckard (harrison ford), last seen alive 30 years ago.
“it was so surreal to be walking around the universe of Blade Runner,” gosling has said of filming in mid-2016. he wasn’t kidding. promising fidelity to the original’s hazy neon aesthetic, Villeneuve went the practical route, revealing “my actors were not walking on greenscreens all day long. cgi is a strong tool for backgrounds and extensions but what is around the actors needs to be as real as possible.” Adds gosling: “Every set was there. Every prop was functional. it was a fully functioning, living, breathing world.” cgi may be used to (rumour has it) revive a familiar face, but it’s the flesh-and-blood characters making us twitch like a Replicant undergoing the Voight-kampff test. Jared leto’s Wallace runs a Replicant creation facility (“We make angels,” he said in footage screened at cinemacon), while Robin Wright and dave bautista (aka drax in Guardians Of The Galaxy) are also onboard as yet-to-be-revealed characters. “it’s a very cool role, but i think the film itself is going to be so huge,” bautista says. So is this just the beginning? could there be a sequel to Villeneuve’s film? “Blade Runner could go on,” the director teases. “We’ll see how this one goes.” Something tells us we won’t have to wait another 30 years for a proper answer.