Blade Runner 2049
Blade Runner 2049 is a 2017 American epic neo-noir science fiction film directed by Denis Villeneuve from a screenplay by Hampton Fancher and Michael Green, based on a story by Fancher. A sequel to Blade Runner, the film stars Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford, with Ana de Armas, Sylvia Hoeks, Robin Wright, Mackenzie Davis, Dave Bautista, and Jared Leto in supporting roles. Ford and Edward James Olmos reprise their roles from the previous film as Rick Deckard and Gaff, respectively. Gosling plays K, a "blade runner" who uncovers a secret that threatens to destabilize society and the course of civilization.
Ideas for a Blade Runner sequel were first proposed in the 1990s, but licensing issues stalled their development. Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson obtained the film rights from Bud Yorkin. Ridley Scott stepped down as the film's initial director and worked as an executive producer, while Villeneuve was later appointed to direct. Blade Runner 2049 was financed through a partnership between Alcon Entertainment and Sony Pictures, as well as a Hungarian government-funded tax rebate. Warner Bros., which had distributed its predecessor, released the film on behalf of Alcon in North America, while Sony handled distribution in international markets. Principal photography took place mostly at two soundstages in Budapest over four months from July to November 2016.
Blade Runner 2049 premiered at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, California on October 3, 2017, and was released in the United States on October 6. The film received acclaim from critics, who praised multiple aspects including cast performances, directing, cinematography, and faithfulness to the previous film. However, it was a box office flop, grossing $276.6million worldwide against a production budget of $150–185million and failing to reach its estimated break-even point of $400 million. Among its numerous accolades, Blade Runner 2049 received Academy Awards for Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects out of five nominations, and eight British Academy Film Awards nominations, winning for Best Cinematography and Best Special Visual Effects. A sequel television series, Blade Runner 2099, is in development at Amazon Studios, with Scott set to return as executive producer.
Plot
In 2049 Los Angeles, bioengineered humans known as replicants are still used for slave labor. K, a Nexus-9 replicant, works for the Los Angeles Police Department as a "blade runner," an officer who hunts and "retires" rogue replicant models.After "retiring" replicant Sapper Morton, K finds a box buried under a tree at Morton's farm. It contained the remains of a female replicant who died during a caesarean section. This demonstrates that replicants could reproduce biologically, previously thought impossible. K's superior, Lt. Joshi, or "Madam," fears this knowledge will lead to war between humans and replicants, so she orders K to retire the replicant child and destroy all related evidence.
K visits the Wallace Corporation, successor to the defunct Tyrell Corporation in the manufacture of replicants. DNA archives identify the deceased female as an experimental Nexus 7 replicant. K learns of her romantic ties with former blade runner Rick Deckard. CEO Niander Wallace wants the secret to replicant reproduction to expand interstellar colonization. He sends his replicant enforcer, Luv, to monitor K. An unidentified figure engages several prostitutes in the city, including one named Mariette, to keep eyes on K.
At Morton's farm, K finds the date 6.10.21 carved into the tree trunk and recognizes it from a childhood memory of a wooden toy horse. Because replicant memories are artificial, K's holographic A.I. girlfriend Joi suggests that this is evidence that K was born, not created. K discovers in LAPD records that two children born on that date have identical DNA, but are inexplicably registered as being opposite genders, and that the girl died from a genetic disorder. K's search for the boy leads him to an orphanage, but the records from the year in question are missing. K recognizes the orphanage from his memories and finds the toy horse in the furnace where he remembers hiding it. He then visits replicant-memory-maker Dr. Ana Stelline, who confirms that his memory of the orphanage is a real memory that someone lived, leading K to conclude he is the deceased replicant woman's son. K then fails a baseline test, marking him as rogue. When he implies to Joshi that he killed the replicant child, she gives him 48 hours to pass the test, or he will be retired himself.
Joi hires prostitute replicant Mariette to sync with to be able to have physical intimacy with K. The following morning, Mariette places a tracker in K's jacket prior to leaving. K then takes the wooden toy horse to be analyzed for its origin, which leads him to the ruins of a now radioactive Las Vegas. There he finds Deckard, who informs him that the deceased replicant woman was named Rachael, and that he is the father of Rachael's child. Deckard had helped the Replicant Freedom Movement scramble the birth records to protect the child's identity. Deckard then left the child with the Replicant Freedom Movement to ensure the hunted child would not be found through him. Luv, who has killed Joshi, tracks K to Las Vegas. She kidnaps Deckard, destroys Joi, and leaves an injured K behind. Using Mariette's tracker, the Replicant Freedom Movement rescues K. Their leader, Freysa, reveals that Rachael's child was actually a girl. Fearing that Deckard may give up the freedom movement to Wallace and endanger the child, Freysa urges K to kill him. K deduces that the memory of the toy horse actually belongs to Dr. Stelline, who is Rachael's daughter.
Luv takes Deckard to meet Wallace, who offers Deckard a duplicate Rachael in exchange for information about the child's whereabouts. Deckard refuses the offer, so Wallace has Luv kill the duplicate. As Luv transports Deckard to be tortured off-world, K intercedes. He fights and drowns Luv but is severely wounded in the process.
K tells Deckard that he will be presumed dead, and is now free to go to his daughter, and then takes him to Dr. Stelline's facility. Standing outside the facility, he hands Deckard the toy horse. Deckard enters the building and meets Dr. Stelline, while K lies down on the front steps.
Cast
Archival footage, audio, and stills of Sean Young from the original film are used to represent both her original character of Rachael and a duplicate of the character created by Niander Wallace. Young's likeness was digitally superimposed onto Loren Peta, who was coached by Young on how to recreate her performance from the first film. The voice of the replicant was created with the use of a sound-alike actress to Young. Young was credited for her work.Production
Development
From the 1990s, licensing disputes over Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? had deterred the creation of sequels to the science fiction drama Blade Runner. Director Ridley Scott conceived two ultimately unrealized projects vaguely connected to the Blade Runner canon in the interim, such as a stand-alone sequel titled Metropolis. Scott's second project, a collaboration with his son Luke and younger brother Tony titled Purefold, had been imagined as an episodic webseries examining conceptions of empathy.Nearly three decades after the film's release, Alcon Entertainment co-founders Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson purchased the intellectual property from producer Bud Yorkin. The terms of Alcon's acquisition prohibited the remake of the original Blade Runner film, but entitled the company rights to syndication, franchising, and derivative media such as prequels and sequels. No longer satisfied with the profits of their smaller-budget features, and with investor funding scarce, Kosove and Johnson sought to increase Alcon's output of blockbuster films: "If you don't have repetitive cash flow, which is a fancy way of saying being in the sequel business, you are going to be in trouble eventually". Progress on a new Blade Runner feature soon accelerated when Kosove named Christopher Nolan one of his ideal choices to direct. However, Nolan said he never planned to direct, despite being an admirer of the Blade Runner franchise.
By August 2011, Alcon had announced Ridley Scott's signing as the film's director to the press. The British filmmaker had long desired a sequel to expand upon the subject matter. After securing Scott's services, the studio assigned Michael Green and a returning Hampton Fancher the responsibility for writing the script. Alcon producers provided some insight into their vision but were unsure of how to approach the Blade Runner story, hence they and the normally candid Scott were tight-lipped when questioned further about the sequel's artistic direction in interviews conducted during pre-production. Ultimately, Scott resigned from his duties once his existing commitment to Alien: Covenant took precedence, but retained partial oversight as an executive producer. He also made significant contributions to the screenplay, albeit in an uncredited role.
Blade Runner 2049 was Alcon's second collaboration with director Denis Villeneuve, whom they called for a meeting at a cafe in rural New Mexico to negotiate an offer. They had an existing professional relationship from Prisoners. Villeneuve credits Blade Runner for inspiring his passion for filmmaking, but hesitated to accept the assignment at first as he feared tarnishing the franchise's legacy. Nevertheless, he liked the screenplay and was assured by Fancher's investment in the project. Villeneuve preserved elements of the original film by modernizing Blade Runner retrofuturistic onscreen world, which he saw as imperative for an authentic story.
A scene from Steven Spielberg Ready Player One set in the Blade Runner universe was excluded from the film's finished cut. Spielberg had sought copyright approval during the filming of Blade Runner 2049, which Alcon producers refused as they feared the explicit reference would affect their commercial prospects, even though Ready Player One was released months later. Consequently, Spielberg opted to replace the scene for one based on The Shining owing to his friendship with Stanley Kubrick.