Star-studded “Blade Runner” sequel adds cast

PanARMENIAN.Net - Dutch actress Sylvia Hoeks has been tapped for a leading role alongside Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Robin Wright, Ana de Armas and Dave Bautista in Alcon Entertainment’s “Blade Runner” sequel, Variety reports.

Alcon co-founders and co-CEOs Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson made the announcement Tuesday, April 26. Denis Villeneuve (“Sicario”) is directing with principal photography scheduled to begin in July.

The film will be released by Warner Bros. in North America on Oct. 6, 2017, and Sony Pictures Releasing International will distribute in all media for all overseas territories.

Hoeks starred in “Tirza,” directed by Rudolf van den Berg, which was the official Dutch entry for best foreign language film at the Oscars in 2010. Her credits include “Het Meisje en de Dood,” “Duska,” “The Best Offer” and “The Storm.”

Hoeks broke out with the 2007 Jos Stelling film “Duska,” for which she won a Golden Calf (the Dutch equivalent of an Oscar) at the annual Dutch Film Festival.

“Sylvia is a radiant talent, a tremendous actress with great appeal in a wide variety of roles,” Johnson and Kosove said. “Her addition to this vastly accomplished international cast is a perfect fit.”

The sequel is set several decades after the 1982 original, with Ford reprising his role as Rick Deckard. Ridley Scott directed the original, which was set in 2019 Los Angeles with Deckard pursuing four replicants who had escaped from an off-world colony.

The film is written by Hampton Fancher and Michael Green, and succeeds the initial story by Fancher and David Peoples, which was based on Philip K. Dick’s novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.”

Roger Deakins, who shot “Sicario,” will reunite with Villeneuve on the project as cinematographer. The film has a U.S. release date of Oct. 6, 2017.

Alcon Entertainment acquired the prequel and sequel rights to “Blade Runner” in 2011 from the late producer Bud Yorkin and Cynthia Sikes Yorkin. Producers are Johnson, Kosove and Cynthia Sikes Yorkin with Bud Yorkin receiving producer credit.