It was the brightly-sparking blue touch paper for a whole new universe of intelligent big screen sci-fi that we’ll now never get to see.Blade Runner, Ridley Scott’s cult science fiction classic, has a special place in many cinephiles’ hearts. Villeneuve’s film is a rare example of the blockbuster with brains, a hugely entertaining romp through the dystopian future that also functions properly as an existential thinkpiece.
IMDB BLADE RUNNER 2049 MOVIE
It is that for all its brilliance, the movie was clearly never intended as an arthouse production.
But there is no guarantee that Villeneuve’s film will win nominations beyond the technical categories – Roger Deakins must be a shoo-in for best cinematography – nor that the public will be persuaded to take a second look at a movie that has already been heavily publicised when there is fresher Oscar bait to be consumed.Īnd it is not just that BR 2049 fails to fit the mould of an awards season big-hitter. If Blade Runner 2049 were not a genre movie, it could yet hope to pick up box office as awards season kicks in. For if Hollywood cannot turn a profit on big-budget cerebral sci-fi, it will surely look elsewhere to make money. Those who marvelled at BR 2049’s expensive, mind-bending visuals might be forgiven for wondering if we will now ever see its like again in multiplexes. And yet, imagining a budget take on Villeneuve’s film would be like wondering how a Ferrari Testarossa might drive had it been mass-produced by Fiat – it would drain all the joy out.
IMDB BLADE RUNNER 2049 TV
Perhaps we should be asking ourselves quite why BR 2049 cost so much to make when TV shows such as Westworld and Humans are meeting the needs of smart sci-fi fans on the small screen for a fraction of the cost.
It is also very long, and appears to have completely failed to appeal to audiences under 25 who haven’t seen its predecessor. Blade Runner inspires its audience to consider big questions about the nature of humanity, artificial intelligence and the soul, rather than simply marvel at the futuristic spectacle on show. There has been very little like it in multiplexes since Alex Garland’s Ex Machina in 2014 or Villeneuve’s own Arrival last year (and neither of those cost even a third of BR 2049’s staggering $155m budget). The obvious difference here is that Blade Runner 2049 is a muscular-yet-cerebral science-fiction thriller rather than a superhero flick, which perhaps explains its disappointing reach. The three most critically acclaimed science fiction and fantasy movies of 2017 so far are Wonder Woman, Thor: Ragnarok and Logan, all of which performed well at cinemas.
The news comes as a shock, because when a tentpole genre movie is as well reviewed as Villeneuve’s film, we expect it to do good business. BR 2049 has so far racked up $240.6m at the global box office, a long way short of the $400m it apparently requires to break even, once marketing costs are taken into consideration. Unfortunately, reports that Blade Runner rights holder Alcon Entertainment could lose up to $80m on Villeneuve’s epic don’t bode well for the prospect of follow-up films. Both Fancher and Green have admitted dreaming of sequels. Certainly Blade Runner 2049, despite being relatively self-contained, would have made an enticing first instalment in an eventual trilogy. Villeneuve and screenwriters Hampton Fancher and Michael Green might well have been hoping to answer all these questions in future instalments. Is Carla Juri’s Dr Ana Stelline Deckard’s biological daughter, and can she ever leave that giant glass dome? Who will win the battle for control over the first naturally born replicant – Jared Leto’s Niander Wallace, or Hiam Abbass’s one-eyed robo-insurgent Freysa? Will Deckard and Ana ever restore their father-daughter bond, given he abandoned her to that awful orphanage as a small child? What’s more, we suddenly have dozens of new puzzles to solve. Is Harrison Ford’s Rick Deckard a replicant? What do the off-world colonies look like? Are androids the next stage in human evolution, or merely useful gifts for the 21st-century sociopath who has everything? After almost three breathless hours of pulsating dystopian thrills, we are no closer to filling in many of the gaps in Ridley Scott’s original 1982 dystopian masterwork. In a large part that’s because the Canadian film-maker chose to plunge so far down the futuristic rabbit hole without revealing enough of this mesmerising sci-fi wonderland’s darkest secrets. If there was ever a movie to leave you wanting more, it is Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049.
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