Denis Villeneuve accepts Blade Runner 2049 may not win over fans

Denis Villeneuve has “made peace” with the fact that Blade Runner 2049 may not be a success.
With the upcoming movie, the Canadian filmmaker is revisiting the premise of Ridley Scott’s 1982 sci-fi original, which focused on Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard, a special police operative known as Blade Runner who reluctantly agrees to hunt down a group of bioengineered “replicants”.
For the sequel, Villeneuve is set to introduce Ryan Gosling as LAPD Officer K as a new Blade Runner, with the director admitting that he has come to terms with the possibility that the new instalment may not capture fans’ attention.
“Ryan Gosling and I made peace with the idea that the chances of success were very narrow,” he told The Hollywood Reporter at the CineEurope trade show in Barcelona. “I came on board because the script was very strong. But no matter what you do, no matter how good what you’re doing is, the film will always be compared to the first, which is a masterpiece. So I made peace with that. And when you make peace with that you are free.”
Little is known about the plot for the forthcoming film, though Ford will be reprising his role as Deckard.
The cast also includes Robin Wright, Dave Bautista and Jared Leto, with Scott acting as an executive producer.
But Villeneuve insists that Scott left him to interpret the follow-up as he pleased.
“He said, ‘It’s your movie. I’ll be there if you need me, otherwise I’ll be away,'” he shared. “And I must say he was not there physically, but I felt his presence all the time, because I was dealing with his universe all the time. So in a way he wasn’t there, but he was there a lot at the same time.”
Villeneuve, 49, has made his name by helming a string of acclaimed crime thrillers including Prisoners and Sicario, as well as the Oscar-winning 2016 hit Arrival.
Blade Runner 2049 is slated to hit theatres from October (17).