The sequel to Blade Runner continues to move forward, and now it may have found its leading man.
Drive actor Ryan Gosling is in final negotiations to star in the follow-up to Ridley Scott’s groundbreaking 1982 science fiction film, alongside Harrison Ford, the star of the original film. The movie’s producers announced Gosling’s attachment to the project this week, and indicated that cameras are expected to begin rolling in 2016.
Directed by Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners), the sequel is set several decades after the original, which cast Ford as a Rick Deckard, a resourceful government agent tasked with finding and eliminating wayward “replicants” — intelligent androids that look and act like humans. As he pursues a group of replicants who traveled to Earth after hijacking a spaceship, his mission calls into question the true definition of humanity and what separates the androids from the people around him. The nature of Gosling’s role in the sequel remains unknown, and few details about the film’s plot have been revealed at this point.
Originally expected to bring Scott back as director, the sequel is said to be based on an idea conceived by Scott and original Blade Runner co-writer Hampton Fancher. The script for the sequel was penned by Fancher and Green Lantern screenwriter Michael Green.
And while we’re tracing origins, the first Blade Runner was inspired by sci-fi novelist Philip K. Dick’s 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? That film was nominated for two Academy Awards (for Art Direction & Set Decoration, and for Visual Effects), and was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 1993. The film is widely regarded as one of the greatest science-fiction films ever made.
