Blade Runner 2049 Teaser Confirms New Trailer for Next Week

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A new full trailer for Blade Runner 2049 is set to arrive next Monday, as announced by a short teaser. Alien: Covenant is just a couple of weeks away from release, but that’s not the only follow-up to an acclaimed Ridley Scott sci-fi film coming in 2017. October sees the release of Denis Villeneuve’s sequel to tech-noir-thriller-cum-meditation-on-the-human-psyche Blade Runner, led by Ryan Gosling and seeing the return of Harrison Ford as is-he-isn’t-he replicant Deckard (along with a stacked cast including Jared Leto, Robin Wright and Ana de Armas).

Audiences got their first look at the film with an atmospheric teaser back in December, giving a taste of what the unique take the Arrival director was bringing on the 1982 original’s resplendent near-future, but since then word has been very tight on the project. Scott hinted that a second trailer may come to tie into Covenant‘s theatrical release, and now we have an exact date for the online release.

Warner Bros. has released a fifteen-second teaser that shares some new footage of the film and announces the official trailer in three days, meaning Monday, May 8th. You check it out above.

There’s some impressive looking imagery in the short teaser that is both evocative of the original Blade Runner, yet brings its own visual palette. A standout moment is Gosling’s K walking through an empty nightclub as lights flash, revealing singers as visions. The tease has a voice-over provided by Robin Wright’s character, who appears to be the head of the Blade Runner division (a segment of the LAPD that hunts down rogue replicants) saying “There is an order to things. That’s what we do here. We keep order.” How emblematic that quote is of the Blade Runner sequel is unknown, but it would seem Villeneuve will be probing deeper into the ethics of Blade Running.

What is known of the plot is that it will involve K hunting down Deckard as part of his mission. The original protagonist is hiding out in an orange-misted location, rumored to be Las Vegas, which looks to have some callbacks to the original, 2019-set film; the final shot of this tease shows K fighting with goons against a backdrop reminiscent of what VFX wizard Douglas Trumbull created.

Those are some of the very few stylistic links to the original (although the sequel will see Edward James Olmos returning as Gaff, possibly CGI-deaged). In an era when sequels often hew very close to being remakes, Blade Runner 2049 looks to be a heavily original work. With Villeneuve one of the most promising modern directors, that poses very good things for the project. We will, of course, have a better idea of his true vision and the story he’s telling when the full trailer arrives next week.

[Screen Rant]