Ridley Scott reveals details of opening scene of Blade Runner sequel

The original is set in a dusky, dystopian Los Angeles which never sees the sunlight, but Ridley Scott has revealed that the forthcoming sequel to the cult 1982 sci-fi film Blade Runner will open on a remote farm in the Wyoming countryside, in a landscape which appears to have been ravaged by environmental catastrophe.

Scott, who is producing the follow-up, detailed its opening scene during an appearance at the AFI festival in Los Angeles. He said that the scene was originally imagined for the first movie, more than three decades ago.

“We decided to start the film off with the original starting block of the original film,” said Scott, according to the blog Slash Film. “We always loved the idea of a dystopian universe, and we start off at what I describe as a ‘factory farm’ – what would be a flat land with farming. Wyoming. Flat, not rolling – you can see for 20 miles. No fences, just ploughed, dry dirt.

“Turn around and you see a massive tree, just dead, but the tree is being supported and kept alive by wires that are holding the tree up. It’s a bit like The Grapes of Wrath; there’s dust, and the tree is still standing. By that tree is a traditional, Grapes of Wrath-type white cottage with a porch. Behind it at a distance of two miles, in the twilight, is this massive combine harvester that’s fertilising this ground. You’ve got 16 Klieg lights on the front, and this combine is four times the size of this cottage. And now a spinner [a flying car] comes flying in, creating dust. Of course, traditionally chased by a dog that barks.

“The doors open, a guy gets out and there you’ve got Rick Deckard. He walks in to the cottage, opens the door, smells stew, sits down and waits for the guy to pull up to the house to arrive. The guy’s seen him, so the guy pulls the combine behind the cottage and it towers three stories above it, and the man climbs down from a ladder – a big man. He steps onto the balcony and he goes to Harrison [Ford]’s side. The cottage actually [creaks]; this guy’s got to be 350 pounds. I’m not going to say anything else – you’ll have to go see the movie.”

Production company Alcon Entertainment revealed in February that Ford would return as the “blade runner” Deckard in the sequel, which will be directed by the Canadian director of Sicario and Prisoners, Denis Villeneuve. This week, Ryan Gosling confirmed that he will star in the film, and the cinematographer Roger Deakins has also signed on.

According to Slash Film, in the opening scene of the original Blade Runner script, Deckard fights the 350-pound man, then rips off his jaw to reveal that the interloper is a replicant, or android.

Scott, 77, has indicated he now sees franchise potential in Blade Runner, which was not a critical or box-office hit in 1982. Criticism of the film was largely reversed with the release in 1992 of a director’s cut, which excised the original’s voiceover and pegged-on “happy ending”. Based on the 1968 Philip K Dick novel, and focused on a “blade runner” tasked with hunting down a gang of replicants who have escaped to Earth from an off-world colony, Blade Runner is today considered a stone-cold classic of sci-fi cinema. Shooting of the sequel is expected to begin in summer 2016.