t Denis Villeneuve’s command, rain begins to fall.
Waves crash against a vast sea wall that shields Los
Angeles from an enraged ocean. It’s deep into the
night, and only the sporadic searchlights that dance
across the water provide any illumination. An effect
one could happily describe as Blade Runner-y.
“Action!”
Out in the half-light, Ryan Gosling, wrapped in
a hefty overcoat, finishes his push-ups and Sylvia
Hoeks, head-to-toe in skin-tight artificial leather, concludes her lunges.
At an unseen signal, they set to. No quarter is given: Gosling’s Officer K
and Hoeks’ Luv come to expertly choreographed blows. Finally, with an
ungentlemanly swivel of his hips, K launches Luv into the surf.
Fictionally speaking, it is 2049 in a noir-soaked LA, 30 years after
Blade Runner’s cop hero Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) fled the city with
Rachael, his replicant (read: android) lover, his own humanity dependent
on who you ask. But in real-world terms it’s October 2016, on the outskirts
of Hungary, where the Blade Runner 2049 shoot has taken over a giant
water tank. The long-awaited sequel is two-thirds of the way towards
completion and nothing seems amiss, though Ford himself is ensconsed
in his trailer, replaced by a stunt double snared in cuffs in a nearby
Spinner craft.
As the scene is recomposed for another take, Villeneuve heads
in Empire’s direction. “I feel for my actors, but it is important to be in
contact with the elements, no?” he tells us with a laugh. “I am on day 65
of shooting, I think, and I have seen three greenscreens so far. We are trying
to do this in the spirit of the original. In order to step forwards, you have to
step backwards.”
Villeneuve had initially thought to shoot in downtown LA, but it had
become too modern to play his future, and he liked the idea of adding some
Eastern European interiors. Instead, the body of production, which will run
from July though to November, is taking place on the nine soundstages and
backlot of Origo Studio, a few miles from here.
“I am having the time of my life,” says the Canadian director, who is
riding high on the icy promise of thrillers like Incendies, Prisoners and
Sicario, not to mention last year’s cerebral sci-fi hit Arrival. “No matter
what we achieve, we will always be compared with a masterpiece. But what
we are doing is so insane, it gives you freedom.”
He spins on his heel to take it all in: Gosling back at his push-ups; the
crew in waders; Roger Deakins, his cinematographer, contemplating the
camera from under the hood of his cagoule.
“We are all,” he muses, “children of Blade Runner.”
idea of a Blade Runner sequel
had been no more than a twinkle in a unicorn’s eye. A dreamy Philip K.
Dick-inspired noir confounded by questions of what it is to be human,
the original has become a cult phenomenon, fans treating it like a holy relic.
Yet on its arrival in 1982, it was derided by critics and ignored by audiences,
who wanted Han Solo, not this glum gumshoe with a buzz cut. Its
cloth-eared voice-over and happy ending were the lame interventions
of desperate producers. Relations between Scott and his paymasters,
who held the rights, had become so contentious that revisiting this
world was untenable.
Even so, Blade Runner always felt like unfinished business. Scott still
smarts that Pauline Kael spent three-and-a-half pages scoffing at him in
The New Yorker: “Scott seems to be trapped in his own alleyways, without
a map...” Blade Runner taught him never to read reviews, but he kept
tinkering, searching for perfection. With seven different versions, it’s a film
with its own existential crisis, treated by Scott as a kind of rolling art
project. “It may be my most personal film,” he reflects.
When Alcon Entertainment called him in 2012, then, to say that
they had reclaimed the rights to all prequels, sequels, TV, novels and
games (but no remakes), Scott was overjoyed. “I’ve been waiting for this
call for 35 years,” he told them. Then he outlined to them the idea that had
been lurking in his head since Roy Batty’s rooftop valedictory, a total
justification for a sequel. “And it is all there in the first film,” he teases.
With Alcon’s backing, he hauled Hampton Fancher back in.
The co-writer of the original film brought with him that specific
cadence — “that sense of pace and place”— which had such an
influence on the original.
“Not again,” Fancher had groaned, resistance futile.
The two of them — plus Michael Green, who joined halfway through