How on earth do you follow a film as iconic and generally amazing as Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner? We’re about to find out, as Denis Villeneuve’s hotly anticipated sequel, Blade Runner 2049 is now just under a month away from release.
After a series of moody and beautiful trailers that give every impression that Villeneuve has done what some said was impossible, expectations are through the roof. Now adding a little more fuel to the fire are these new character posters that give us a detailed look at our cast of characters.
Seen in the gallery below, you’ll probably agree that they’re hardly the most inspiring one-sheets in history, especially considering the visual delights we see in the trailers. However, given that the design brief was presumably to produce a series of posters explaining to audiences who’s who in the movie, I guess you can call it a job done (if not a job particularly well done). The silver lining to this pretty bland cloud is that Thai poster showing off Villeneuve’s reimagining of the Spinner flying car, which here has a neat Tron-gone-grunge aesthetic. More like that, please!
Of course, this will be a moot point if Blade Runner 2049 disappoints, but I think the prognosis looks pretty good. Villeneuve is on a major hot streak right now, with Prisoners, Sicario and of course, the amazing Arrival carving him out a place as a visually distinctive director with the smarts to give his films an intellectual as well as visual depth. It’s precisely these qualities that got him the Ridley Scott seal-of-approval to continue the Blade Runner story.
Regardless, whether Blade Runner 2049 is a hit or a hash, the director certainly won’t be short of work in the future, having already been tapped for a franchise launching reimagining of Frank Herbert’s Dune – arguably the king of 20th Century science fiction literature.
