— got to work developing a future-future noir, hooked on Scott’s secret
premise. And finally, out of this tripart collaboration, emerged a script that
has mesmerised all who read it.
Even, it turned out, Harrison Ford. He had convinced himself it was
never going to happen. Yet when he laid eyes on the screenplay he called
Scott straight away. “Ridley,” he said, “you know that this is the best script
ever sent to me.”
room away from the elemental furore of
the set, the once and future Rick Deckard sets the record straight. “Ridley
and I have long since made our peace with each other,” Ford says.
“Whatever the circumstances were during the original film, I have great
respect for Ridley and admiration for his work.”
It is well-documented that Blade Runner was a gruelling production,
in which leading man and director did not see eye to eye. The star came to
believe he mattered less to the director than his dilapidated fantasia. The
director felt his authority was being questioned. “Of the 50-day schedule,
35 were nights,” recalls a politic Ford. “Which is a brutal regimen. Anyway,
Denis is a very different kind of director than...” He gives a hint of a smirk.
“What was his name again? Ah yes, than Ridley.”
Loosely, Blade Runner 2049 is about the hunt for Deckard, with
more than one party interested in his whereabouts. But beyond that, Ford
is scrupulous at keeping the secrets of the new film intact; when asked
about Deckard and K, he responds, “We really don’t want to name the
relationship at this point.”
Gosling, at least, provides a spoiler-scanned précis of events:
“The world has become even more brutal. People are trying to survive. [K]
discovers a mystery that makes him question his own identity, and Deckard
is the only one who can answer those questions.”
It was once Ford had committed to the script that Scott had to face
facts. “It was always intended for me to do it,” he says. “I was working on
this script for two years, but there wasn’t the time.” Other business called
him away: The Martian and Alien: Covenant. “I felt I had to be reasonable
and step out.”
Villeneuve took the reins instead. And happily he and Ford found they �Friends or foes?
Deckard (Harrison Ford)
confronts Officer K
(Ryan Gosling).