The October 6, 2017 release date for director Denis Villeneuve's BLADE RUNNER 2049, the long-awaited follow-up to Ridley Scott's 1982 sci-fi noir classic BLADE RUNNER, is still far off, but a teaser trailer has already arrived online. Actually, this preview – which runs less than 2 minutes – is being referred to by the powers that be as an "announcement piece".
It's a pretty impressive announcement. I'm not sure I need to see anything further from 2049 before it's in theatres, because what's on display in this video is already enough to sell me on it. Here we have impressive visuals, an excellent recreation of an iconic BLADE RUNNER environment, and new star Ryan Gosling having an encounter with the original film's star, Harrison Ford reprising the role of Rick Deckard.
Along with this "announcement piece", production company Alcon Entertainment has also provided the first official synopsis for the film:
Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K (Ryan Gosling), unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what’s left of society into chaos. K’s discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years.
Based on the Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, BLADE RUNNER was written by Hampton Fancher and David Webb Peoples. Fancher returned to craft the story of BLADE RUNNER 2049 with Ridley Scott and wrote the screenplay with Michael Green. Scott at one point intended to direct the film himself and remains on board as a producer.
In addition to Gosling and Ford, the sequel stars Jared Leto, Robin Wright, Ana de Armas, Sylvia Hoeks, Mackenzie Davis, Carla Juri, Dave Bautista, Barkhad Abdi, David Dastmalchian, Lennie James, and Hiam Abbass.