Blade Runner 2049 Director Interested in Returning to the Franchise

More than 30 years after the debut of the original Blade Runner, filmmaker Denis Villeneuve delivered audiences the follow-up Blade Runner 2049 in 2017 and, despite moving on to a number of other exciting properties, Villeneuve recently revealed how excited he would be to return to the world of the franchise. One caveat he expressed about such a return, however, was that he wouldn't be interested in crafting a sequel to his previous film and would be more interested in telling another story set in that landscape. Despite the film earning strong critical reviews, it didn't live up to financial expectations, which would make a follow-up film from any filmmaker seem like an impossibility.

"It's such an inspiring place, the Blade Runner world," Villeneuve shared with Empire. "The problem I have is the word 'sequel'. I think cinema needs original stories. But if you ask me if I'd like to revisit this universe in a different way, I can say yes. It would need to be a project on its own. Something disconnected from both other movies. A detective noir story set in the future… I wake up sometimes in the night dreaming about it."

The original film was inspired by the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, featuring a "Blade Runner" whose job it was to find and destroy outdated models of artificially created "replicants." The film posed a number of philosophical questions about the nature of sentience and existence, a question that was further complicated with Blade Runner 2049 in which a Blade Runner discovers that one of these replicants has seemingly given birth, a revelation which could tear apart society.

Thanks to films like Enemy, Prisoners, and Arrival, Villeneuve proved himself as a compelling and ambitious filmmaker, which was only confirmed by Blade Runner 2049. The director is currently working on the highly anticipated reboot of Frank Herbert's Dune, which had previously been adapted into a film by another beloved director, David Lynch.

"David Lynch did an adaptation in the '80s that has some very strong qualities. I mean, David Lynch is one of the best filmmakers alive, I have massive respect for him," Villeneuve teased of his approach to Yahoo! Movies. "But when I saw his adaptation, I was impressed, but it was not what I had dreamed of, so I'm trying to make the adaptation of my dreams. It will not have any link with the David Lynch movie. I'm going back to the book, and going to the images that came out when I read it."

Dune lands in theaters on December 18th. Stay tuned for details on the Blade Runner franchise.

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