It's always a risky gamble to bring back any franchise that has been away for decades. The audience is older, and you're basically banking on name recognition to lure in younger viewers. Blade Runner 2049 has that hurdle to climb, but Denis Villeneuve and Ridley Scott have decided to make things even tougher by making the sci-fi sequel R-rated.
Villeneuve confirmed to Screen Daily he had free run to do what he wanted in the return to futuristic Los Angeles, although his producers are wary of what that could mean...
“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."
"Independent" being a relative term, of course. Alcon Entertainment is technically an indie outfit so I guess it qualifies, but the budget would far outstrip what typically defines the label. The director also revealed that he's keeping green screen to a minimum, and teased that the franchise could continue since he has "two more ideas" that he wants to do. Likely it all depends on how well the movie does with that R-rating attached to it.
Meanwhile, EW has dropped the first official stills from the film, featuring Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford, who apparently got along famously on set..after Gosling got over his nerves. Gosling says...
"They say never meet your heroes. But the addendum to that is: unless they’re Harrison Ford. Harrison didn’t start working until a month into production, so we had a lot of time to just imagine how that might be, and waiting for that moment to come, and hoping that we were making something that would be satisfying to him...And then it was just unmistakably him — even in silhouette, you couldn’t miss it — and it was just such a relief.He immediately put everyone at ease and went right to work.”
Blade Runner 2049 opens October 6th 2017. You can check out the newly-released trailer here and the new images below.
