The Blade Runner sequel seems to be on track! According to Variety, Ryan Gosling is negotiating to join the film, and according to People, this will make the film “even sexier.” Because, while thoughtful meditations on corporate soullessness and the relentless march of mortality are always super-hot, the addition of Ryan Gosling to a project adds at least 20% more sexiness. Harrison Ford, who is currently making us all weep tears of joy in the new Star Wars trailer, has already signed on to reprise his role as Rick Deckard. But since he’s become America’s irascible grandpa, he can no longer be relied upon to provide enough pure, uninhibited smolder to films that encourage us to stare into the void of our own existence. It was good of Gosling to answer the call.
The sequel is being directed by Prisoners‘ Denis Villeneuve and executive produced by Ridley Scott (which, given Exodus and Prometheus, is probably just as well) and co-written by comics writer Michael Green and Hampton Fancher, the author of the original draft of the 1982 film.
So, who do we think Gosling’s going to play? Is he going to be product of Deckard and Rachel’s tragic love? Is he a replicant? Is he a new detective, hunting Deckard down? Perhaps he’s an origami enthusiast, and spends the entire film trying to track down Edward James Olmos’ character so they can make unicorns together… OK, probably not that one. And how dystopian are the filmmakers going to go? L.A. was already kind of a wasteland in the first film, so if this one’s set, as they’ve stated, several decades later, what can civilization possible look like? Or maybe they’ll just take the film offworld? There are so many possibilities here! Are you, as Time posits, “swooning at the thought of a Gosling/Ford bromance onscreen?”
