BLADE RUNNER 2 Adds DP Roger Deakins
12-time Oscar nominee Roger Deakins has joined the Blade Runner 2 production team as director of photography.
Alcon Entertainment co-founders Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson made the announcement on Wednesday, that Deakins will re-team with director Denis Villeneuve on the sequel. The two worked together previously on Prisoners, also from Alcon, and Sicario, which is presently in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. On May 22, Deakins will also be presented with the Pierre Angénieux Excellens in Cinematography Award
Deakins’ work includes Unbroken, The Shawshank Redemption, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Fargo, The Man Who Wasn’t There, and the True Grit remake. He was also the D.P. on Skyfall.
“Roger is an extraordinary talent and we are very excited that Denis and Roger have chosen to continue their collaboration in bringing the sequel to ‘Blade Runner’ to the big screen,” Kosove and Johnson said in a joint statement.
Principal photography is set to begin next summer. The story takes place several decades after the first Blade Runner. Some have decried the need for a sequel, espousing the belief that any story that shows Rick Deckard still alive after so many years will negate the ending of the original, which left open the question of whether Deckard was himself a replicant with a limited life span.
Harrison Ford is on board to reprise his role as Deckard, with Ryan Gosling also part of the cast in an undisclosed role. Original co-writer Hampton Fancher and Micheal Green penned the new script off an idea by Fancher and producer Ridley Scott, director of the original (and the other re-edited versions that have come out since…).
