Back in February, Warner Bros. and Alcon Entertainment issued a January 12, 2018 release date for Blade Runner 2, which would have put the long-awaited sci-fi sequel up against Sherlock Gnomes and an untitled 20th Century Fox/Marvel adventure. It seems that the movie is coming along ahead of schedule, though, with the studio pushing the sequel back to October 6, 2017. Ironically, the movie will now go up against a different untitled 20th Century Fox/Marvel movie, along with an untitled Warner Bros. "event film."
Alcon Entertainment's sequel to Ridley Scott's 1982 masterpiece Blade Runner, starring Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Robin Wright and Dave Bautista, will be released in North America by Warner Bros., and Sony Pictures Releasing International will distribute in all overseas territories in all media. The film will be directed by Denis Villeneuve (Sicario, Prisoners). Principal photography is scheduled to begin July 2016.
The sequel, set several decades after the original, is written by Hampton Fancher and Michael Green, and succeeds the initial story by Fancher and David Peoples based on Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Story details are not being revealed. Multi-Oscar nominated cinematographer Roger Deakins (Sicario, Prisoners) will reunite with Villeneuve on the project.
Alcon Entertainment acquired the film, television and ancillary franchise rights to Blade Runner in 2011 from the late producer Bud Yorkin and Cynthia Sikes Yorkin to produce prequels and sequels to the iconic science-fiction thriller. Cynthia Sikes Yorkin will produce along with Johnson and Kosove. Bud Yorkin will receive producer credit. Ridley Scott will serve as Executive Producer. Frank Giustra and Tim Gamble, CEO's of Thunderbird Films, will also serve as executive producers along with Bill Carraro.
Among its many distinctions, Blade Runner has been singled out as one of the greatest movies of all time by innumerable polls and media outlets, and overwhelmingly as the greatest science-fiction film of all time by a majority of genre publications. Released in 1982 by Warner Bros. Pictures, Blade Runner served as Ridley Scott's follow-up to his landmark film, Alien. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards (Best Visual Effects, and Best Art Direction) and is now regarded by media and cineastes as one of the greatest movies of all time and the defining vision of the cyberpunk genre.