Blade Runner 2049 is a 2017 American neo-noir science fiction film directed by Denis Villeneuve and written by Hampton Fancher and Michael Green. A sequel to the 1982 film Blade Runner, the film stars Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford, with Ana de Armas, Sylvia Hoeks, Robin Wright, Mackenzie Davis, Carla Juri, Lennie James, Dave Bautista, and Jared Leto in supporting roles. Ford and Edward James Olmos reprise their roles from the original. Gosling plays K, a Nexus-9 replicant "blade runner" who uncovers a secret that threatens to destabilize society and the course of civilization.
Blade Runner 2049 premiered in Los Angeles on October 3, 2017, and was released in the United States in 2D, 3D, and IMAX on October 6, 2017. The film received acclaim from critics, who praised its performances, direction, cinematography, editing, musical score, production design, visual effects, and faithfulness to the original film. It was widely considered among the best films of 2017. However, it was a box office disappointment, grossing $260.5 million worldwide against a production budget between $150–185 million. Blade Runner 2049 was nominated for and won several accolades: at the 90th Academy Awards, the film won Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects, and was nominated for Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing and Best Production Design. It also received eight nominations at the 71st British Academy Film Awards, including Best Director, and won Best Cinematography and Best Special Visual Effects.
In 2049, bioengineered humans known as replicants are slaves. K (short for his serial number, KD6-3.7), a Nexus-9 replicant, works for the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) as a "blade runner," an officer who hunts and "retires" (kills) rogue replicants. He retires Sapper Morton and finds a box buried under a tree at a protein farm. The box contains the remains of a female replicant who died during a cesarean section, demonstrating that replicants can reproduce biologically, previously thought impossible. K's superior, Lt. Joshi, fears that this could lead to a war between humans and replicants. She orders K to find and retire the replicant child to hide the truth.
K visits the Wallace Corporation's headquarters, the successor to the defunct Tyrell Corporation in the manufacture of replicants. Wallace staff members identify the deceased female from DNA archives as Rachael, an experimental replicant designed by Dr. Eldon Tyrell. K learns of Rachael's romantic ties with former blade runner Rick Deckard. Wallace Corporation CEO Niander Wallace wants to discover the secret to replicant reproduction to expand interstellar colonization. He sends his replicant enforcer Luv to steal Rachael's remains and follow K to Rachael's child.
At Morton's farm, K sees the date 6-10-21 carved into the tree trunk and recognizes it from a childhood memory of a wooden toy horse. Because replicants' memories are artificial, K's holographic AI girlfriend Joi believes this is evidence that K was born, not created. He searches LAPD records and discovers twins born on that date with identical DNA aside from the sex chromosome, but only the boy is listed as alive. K tracks the child to an orphanage in ruined San Diego but discovers the records from that year to be missing. K recognizes the orphanage from his memories and finds the toy horse where he remembers hiding it.
Dr. Ana Stelline, a replicant memory designer, confirms that the memory of the orphanage is real, leading K to conclude that he is Rachael's son. At LAPD headquarters, K fails a post-traumatic baseline test, marking him as a rogue replicant; he lies to Joshi by implying he killed the replicant child. Joshi gives K 48 hours to disappear. At Joi's request, K reluctantly transfers her to a mobile emitter so he cannot be tracked through her console memory-files. He has the toy horse analyzed, revealing traces of radiation that lead him to the ruins of Las Vegas. He finds Deckard, who tells that he is the father of Rachael's child and scrambled the birth records to protect the child's identity; Deckard left the child in the custody of the replicant freedom movement.
Luv kills Joshi and tracks K to Las Vegas. She kidnaps Deckard, destroys Joi, and leaves K to die. The replicant freedom movement rescues K. When their leader, Freysa, tells him that she helped deliver Rachael's child and that the child was a girl, K understands that he is not Rachael's child, deduces that Stelline is her daughter and that the memory of the toy horse is hers, one she implanted amongst those of other replicants whose memories she designed. To prevent Deckard from leading Wallace to Stelline or the freedom movement, Freysa asks K to kill Deckard for all replicants' greater good.
Luv takes Deckard to Wallace Corporation headquarters to meet Wallace. Wallace offers Deckard a clone of Rachael in exchange for revealing what he knows. Deckard refuses, and the clone is killed. As Luv transports Deckard to be tortured and interrogated off-world, K intercepts Luv's shuttle and tries to rescue Deckard. He fights Luv and manages to drown her, but he is mortally wounded. He stages Deckard's death to protect him from Wallace and the replicant freedom movement before taking Deckard to Stelline's office and handing him her toy horse. As K lies motionless on the steps, looking up at the snowing sky, Deckard enters the building and meets his daughter for the first time.
Casting
- Ryan Gosling as K
- Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard
- Ana de Armas as Joi
- Sylvia Hoeks as Luv
- Robin Wright as Lt. Joshi
- Mackenzie Davis as Mariette
- Carla Juri as Dr. Ana Stelline
- Lennie James as Mister Cotton
- Dave Bautista as Sapper Morton
- Jared Leto as Niander Wallace
- Edward James Olmos as Gaff
- Barkhad Abdi as Doc Badger
- Hiam Abbass as Freysa
- David Dastmalchian as Coco
- Wood Harris as Nandez
- Tómas Lemarquis as Wallace Corporation file clerk
Archival footage, audio, and stills of Sean Young from the original film are used to represent both her original character of Rachael and a clone 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.
Harrison Ford and Ryan Gosling were Blade Runner 2049's first significant casting choices. Gossip about Ford's participation had been circulating in the media since the project's conception, claims that the producers initially denied, having only approached the actor for a part in 2014. Alcon did not publicly announce Ford's signing until the following year. Ford expressed interest in reprising his role in past interviews and was enthusiastic about the Blade Runner 2049 script. The work environment on set was another aspect of the production Ford was pleased with, a stark contrast from the stressful shooting environment he endured on Blade Runner. He felt the experience playing an older Deckard lent unique context to his character's already-established backstory. Ford stated, "You're not walking into the stadium. You're on the starting line, and you got there just in time, and you're off. It was great. And the story I have to tell flows effortlessly out of the groundwork we've laid before. And it's unanticipated, and it's complicated, and it has an emotional context that is just was the bait on the hook for me." The only other returning Blade Runner actor, Edward James Olmos, appears in a bit supporting part which pivots the main story.
The screenwriters tailored K specifically for Gosling, but it was the opportunity to work with Villeneuve and experienced cinematographer Roger Deakins, paired with his faith in the script, that convinced the actor to join Blade Runner 2049 in his first leading role in a blockbuster production. Gosling developed a reputation for his discriminating film choices—the prospect of working on big-budget franchise sets never enticed him, yet he trusted the filmmakers' instincts, and the thematic complexity of the film's screenplay furthermore reassured his decision. A longtime Blade Runner fan, the actor said his first viewing experience of the film as a young teenager was profound, remarking, "It was one of the first films I had seen where it wasn't clear how I was supposed to feel when it was over. It really makes you question your idea of the hero and the villain, the idea of what it means to be human." Blade Runner 2049 proved challenging for Gosling because of the production's scope.
Ana de Armas auditioned several times before landing the film's female lead. De Armas was an actress of national renown in Spain aspiring to break into English-speaking roles. After working her first Hollywood film in Hands of Stone (2016), she settled in Los Angeles in pursuit of a role that did not typecast her ethnicity. De Armas underwent four months of rigorous speech training to master her English before auditioning. Once the studio commenced production of Blade Runner 2049, the actress said her fitness training provided the necessary mental space to prepare for the intense shooting schedule.
Villeneuve considered David Bowie, one of the franchise's core influences, for the part of Niander Wallace, but the singer died before the start of filming. Instead, he and the producers looked at Jared Leto, fresh off the filming of 2016's Suicide Squad because they felt he exuded Bowie's rockstar sensibility. Leto refrains from naming specific sources that shaped certain aspects of his character's persona, rather the actor cites real-life friends that work in tech as a general influence. Leto is notorious in the film industry for his unorthodox preparation of his roles, and he continued his unusual practices in Blade Runner 2049 by wearing custom opaque contact lenses to work the set completely blind. Villeneuve recalled his first day shooting with the actor, "He entered the room, and he could not see at all. He was walking with an assistant very slowly. It was like seeing Jesus walking into a temple. Everybody became super silent, and there was a kind of sacred moment. Everyone was in awe. It was so beautiful and powerful — I was moved to tears."
A raft of mostly young actors comprise Blade Runner 2049's supporting cast; David Dastmalchian, Sylvia Hoeks, Carla Juri, Mackenzie Davis and Barkhad Abdi were lesser-known stars with years of expertise in indie cinema. Among the few exceptions are Dave Bautista, Hiam Abbass and Lennie James, whose castings were revealed between April–July 2016, and Robin Wright, assigned to one of three major female roles in Blade Runner 2049. Wright's participation had been rumored for weeks, but was not immediately confirmed by the filmmakers because her existing duties to Netflix's political TV thriller House of Cards momentarily stalled the negotiations.
