Blade Runner 2049 News Roundup

Fans of Blade Runner have been waiting nearly 35 years for a sequel. Now, they’re finally getting their wish.

Blade Runner 2049 was officially announced some time ago, with Ryan Gosling playing the lead character and Harrison Ford reprising his role as Rick Deckard. However, this week was the week when details finally began coming out from to the press and the public.

With so much news coming out so rapidly, it is possible that some of it slipped by even the most loyal reader. As such, we’ve assembled all of the major news pieces about Blade Runner 2049 to hit the web this week so far.

The Synopsis

The first news to show up online was the first official synopsis for Blade Runner 2049.

The synopsis sheds some light on what role Ford’s Rick Deckard will play in the sequel.

Here’s the full released synopsis, just in case you missed it the first time:

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.

The Trailer

It wasn’t long after the synopsis was released that the official trailer for Blade Runner 2049 was finally released online.

The Blade Runner 2049 trailer didn’t reveal much more about the new movie’s plot that wasn’t already revealed by the film’s synopsis.

Instead, the trailer focused on showing off direct Denis Villeneuve’s vision for Blade Runner 2049‘s cyberpunk future, moving from the neo-noir city streets to a desolate desert landscape before finally bringing Gosling’s Agent K face-to-face with Ford’s Rick Deckard.

The internet had some thoughts on the trailer. We also put together a gallery of some great still images for your browsing enjoyment.

New Images

Speaking of great new still images, the flow didn’t end with that Blade Runner 2049 gallery trailer gallery.

Harrison Ford and Ryan Gosling are both featured on the cover of the newest issue of Entertainment Weekly, which also featured several new images from the film, including additional shots of Ford’s Deckard and Gosling’s Officer K.

Entertainment Weekly also spoke to Gosling about his role in the big sequel, and specifically about meeting Harrison Ford, a legend even among the acting community, for the first time.

“They say never meet your heroes,” Gosling told Entertainment Weekly. “But the addendum to that is: unless they’re Harrison Ford.”

Rated R

In an interview with Screen, director Denis Villeneuve discussed a great many things about Blade Runner 2049.

One of the things Villeneuve touched on, if indirectly, was Blade Runner 2049‘s film rating.

“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,” Villeneuve said in the interview.

Some fans already seem eager to jump to the conclusion that Blade Runner 2049 is being made for an R rating because of Deadpool‘s success, but it should be noted that the original Blade Runner was also rated R when it was released in theaters.

Sequel Potential

As mentioned, it has been three and one half decades since the original Blade Runner was released.

Now that fans are finally getting a sequel, could they have cause to look forward to more?

According to director Denis Villeneuve, yes. It seems nothing is set in stone, but if Blade Runner 2049 does well enough at the box office, more could be on the way.

“I’m doomed, I love sci-fi,” Villeneuve told Screen. “I have two more ideas now that I would love to do. [And] Blade Runner could go on… we’ll see how this one goes.”

Of course, Villeneuve may end up being busy with rebooting the Dune franchise. We’ll have to wait and see.