How do you engineer a compelling follow-up to one of cinema’s greatest cult classics? That’s the conundrum currently facing Denis Villeneuve (Arrival, Sicario, Dune), the director at the helm of Blade Runner 2049.
It’s a sequel 30 years in the making, and though Ridley Scott’s genre-defining original struggled to make much of a dent at the box office back in ’82 – in fact, critics at the time argued that Blade Runner was little more than a textbook example of style over substance – the engrossing story of Rick Deckard has since wormed its way into the history books as a visually astute sci-fi masterpiece. No pressure for 2049, then.
But during the ongoing press tour for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Dave Bautista was asked about his involvement in Blade Runner 2049. Bound by an NDA, the former wrestler and MMA fighter was naturally cagey about Villeneuve’s long-in-development sequel, but he did hint that it could be better than the first. And before you go grabbing your pitchforks, Bautista’s reasoning is quite simple: 2049 seemingly features a better script that answers “a lot of questions.” Whether that’ll result in a better movie, though, is something we’ll leave to you.
Per AFP:
I think it’s going to be — and this is hard to say because I know I’m going to get some grief for this — I think it’s going to be better than the first film. And I’m saying that because I think the script is better, it’s deeper. I think it’s a better story, I think it’s told in a better way, and I think it just answers a lot of questions. It’s going to be great.
Set some 30 years after the events of Ridley Scott’s seminal classic, Blade Runner 2049 will invite moviegoers back onto the neon-drenched streets of future LA on October 6th, 2017. A clash with Scott’s other sci-fi franchise was quietly avoided after 20th Century Fox brought Alien: Covenant forward to May; instead, Villeneuve’s sequel will go up against glitzy Lionsgate animation, My Little Pony: The Movie.
Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K (Ryan Gosling), unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what’s left of society into chaos. K’s discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years.