Early word is really promising on Denis Villeneuve’s next film, “Arrival,” which is set to be released this November (read our rave review here). While promoting the film, interviewers are also asking the director about his upcoming “Blade Runner 2.” Not much is known about the film, other than it stars Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford and should be released October 2017. While he didn’t give many details about that film, he did drop some info about how much creative control he has.
In an interview with Variety, the director says, “I agreed to do it because the producers behind ‘Blade Runner’ (Broderick Johnson, Andrew A. Kosove) are two friends. I made ‘Prisoners’ with them, and I knew the environment they would create around me would be very secure. I don’t really have final cut on it. The thing I realized about final cut, is it’s the power of the best cut. I didn’t have final cut on ‘Prisoners,’ but what you saw is the best cut. ‘Sicario’ is a directors’ cut, ‘Arrival’ is a directors’ cut. I cannot talk about it, I will see.”
While this alone isn’t enough to necessarily alarm fans of “Blade Runner,” it does show how even a director as accomplished as Villeneuve is still a victim to big studio filmmaking. So much money is invested into these films, there’s no way the producers and studio heads are going to release something that they don’t have final say over, unless a proven blockbuster quantity like Christopher Nolan is in charge.
Another interesting tidbit brought up in the interview is what Villenueve would love to do in the future. “A longstanding dream of mine is to adapt “Dune,” but it’s a long process to get the rights, and I don’t think I will succeed,” says the director. There have been multiple attempts to adapt Frank Herbert’s classic novel, with varying degrees of success. Most famously, David Lynch’s “Dune,” which was released in 1984, is known as taking great liberties with the source material.
Will Villeneuve get the chance to make a new version of “Dune?” Odds are no, but if his career keeps going in the direction it is now, a studio might take a chance on him to tackle the dense sci-fi epic. “Arrival” opens on November 11th, “Blade Runner 2” on October 6th, 2017.