Blade Runner 2 has been in gestation for almost a decade now, but it seems like the wheels are finally turning for the long-awaited sequel to Ridley Scott's 1982 sci-fi masterpiece. In an interview with Variety, Scott confirmed that the film will finally go into production next year, with Harrison Ford reprising his role as neo-noir detective Rick Deckard.
One caveat: Scott will only be producing the film, not returning in the director's chair. The script for the sequel is the work of Scott and the original's co-screenwriter Hampton Fancher, who adapted the movie from the Philip K Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?.
“We talked at length about what it could be, and came up with a pretty strong three-act storyline, and it all makes sense in terms of how it relates to the first one,” said Scott. “Harrison is very much part of this one, but really it’s about finding him; he comes in in the third act.”
The Blade Runner sequel was officially confirmed back in 2011, although Scott announced that he wanted to return to the dystopian future Los Angeles depicted in the film as far back as 2007.
So who's going to helm the sequel? When the sequel finally got off the ground three years ago, executive producer Bud Yorkin said that Christopher Nolan would be their top pick: “I think the methodology that Chris Nolan brought to Batman is precisely what we aspire to whomever the filmmaker is, whether Ridley comes back and joins us or it's someone else. It's precisely what we aspire to with Blade Runner, that's the template for us.”
Watch the trailer for the original Blade Runner below: