While there are so many movies to look forward to in 2017, there is one that has been 35 years in the making,Blade Runner 2049. The firstBlade Runner 2049trailer debuted last month, which has helped raise anticipation to an all-time high, withHarrison Fordreprising his iconic role as Rick Deckard, alongsideRyan Goslingas an LAPD cop known as K. While we wait for the next trailer, starLennie Jamesexplains how secretive the production really was, even surpassing the secrecy ofThe Walking Dead
Blade Runner 2049is set thirty years after the events of the first film, where 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. Nothing has been revealed aboutLennie James' character yet, but the actor recently spoke withNewsWeek, where he revealed that he was only given a selection of script pages for his audition, and not the entire script to read.
“They offered me the job. It came out of the blue and I said, ‘I need to read the script.’ They sent me 20 pages before my character arrived and 20 pages after my character was gone. It was on an app thing that I could only open on one device. I couldn’t take a screenshot, I couldn’t take a photograph, I couldn’t save it. They said, ‘You’ve got 36 hours.’ I had 36 hours with it and then it was gone. Then I had to make a decision to do it. When I did [decide to do it], they sent me the whole script.”
Filming took place inBudapest, Hungarylast year, and unlike most big-budget movies, no photos or footage leaked from the set, with the exception of a brief Omaze video withRyan Gosling, promoting the campaign where one lucky fan could win a trip to the set. The lack of set photos or other leaks is not surprising, after hearing about the lengths the production took to even protect the actor’s sides, each day during the production. Here’s whatLennie Jameshad to say about the security on the set.
“This has never happened to me before… our [script] sides on the day, you had to sign them out, and they’d give you your sides with your words for that day, and then you had to sign them back in. And they wouldn’t let you get in your car to go home until you’d given your sides back. It was frantic. When I finished on the gig, I thought I’d sit down with the script and take it all in. No. Nine hours after wrap that script vanished from my iPad.”
Back in October, the firstBlade Runner 2 photodebuted, featuringHarrison Ford,Ryan GoslingdirectorDenis Villeneuveand producerRidley Scott. Warner Bros. and Alcon have set an Ocotber 6 release date forBlade Runner 2049, which will go up against 20th Century Fox’s action sequelKingsman: The Golden Circleand Lionsgate’sMy Little Pony, setting up a unique box office showdown. Warner Bros. has not yet announced when the new trailer forBlade Runner 2049will arrive, so stay tuned.
