‘Blade Runner 2’ Hunts Down Ryan Gosling to Star Alongside Harrison Ford

What a week to be Ryan Gosling! While his directorial debut, Lost River, is currently baffling audiences around the nation, he remains massively in-demand in front of cameras, where his good looks and enigmatic nature make him one of our best movie stars. A few days ago, we learned that Guillermo del Toro was after him to star in his take on Disney’s The Haunted Mansion. Now, we’ve learned that he’s in negotiations to join Blade Runner 2, where he’ll star alongside Harrison Ford.

The news comes to us via Variety, but the exact nature of his role is under wraps. Heck, the vast majority of this movie is under wraps. We know that Prisoners director Denis Villeneuve will helm the project and that original Blade Runner maestro Ridley Scott will act as a producer, but Hampton Fancher and Michael Green’s screenplay remains a big ol’ mystery.

We could easily see Gosling play another Blade Runner (that’s a robot hunting police officer, for the non-nerds in the audience), perhaps a younger, less experienced fellow who has to learn the ropes from Ford’s wise and experienced Rick Deckard. Put Gosling in a trenchcoat and he’d easily rock that sci-fi noir thing. He’s got a face made for gunsmoke and sadness.

However, we could easily see Gosling play a villain, or at least an antagonist of some kind. The first Blade Runner gave Rutger Hauer the role of a lifetime, letting him give grand speeches while shirtless in the rain, holding doves and crushing heads. If Blade Runner 2 intends to cast Gosling as a sympathetic but nutty robot with a chip on his shoulder then we will buy a bunch of tickets right now as a show of good faith.

But here’s the big question: Which ending of Blade Runner will the sequel follow? The theatrical cut, where Deckard is human, or the director’s cut, where he isn’t? If the movie is really smart, it will find a way to confirm neither, keeping the fan debates alive for years to come.

Blade Runner 2 doesn’t have a release date yet. Heck, it doesn’t even have a proper title. However, if Gosling signs on, we imagine this whole thing will start to come together very quickly.