‘Blade Runner 2’ Starts Filming This Summer, Sets 2017 Release Date

UPDATE: Blade Runner 2 will now open in theaters on October 6, 2017, shifting from its originally scheduled date of January 12, 2018. Robin Wright and Dave Bautista have been confirmed to join Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford in the film’s cast.

It’s still kind of hard to believe that all these years later, we’re finally getting a Blade Runner sequel. Even after they announced the project, even after they claimed people like Ryan Gosling and the original film’s star, Harrison Ford, were involved, it seemed like a pipe dream; the sort of thing people talk about online for years as a possibility that never actually materializes.

But this Blade Runner 2 is really, really happening. Androids shall dream of electric sheep once more.

Deadline has the details that further confirm that the blades are about to start running. Sony has apparently picked up international distribution rights to the sci-fi sequel, which will indeed star Gosling and Ford, who will return to his role as future gumshoe Rick Deckard. (Warner Bros. will distribute the movie in the U.S.) And Deadline even notes that the movie goes into production in July. July! This is like a real thing now.

So real it’s got a big-time director (Denis Villeneuve, who just made the awesome Sicario) and the best cinematographer in the world (Roger Deakins, who talked to me about the project back at the Toronto Film Fest, when he called it “an entirely separate movie” from the first Blade Runner), plus a script by Michael Green and Hampton Fancher, one of the writers of Ridley Scott’s original movie.

Of course now that it’s actually happening, we have to wonder: Will it be any good at all? Perhaps that will be the key question of this movie, in the way the first Blade Runner was all about the nature of life and identity and human consciousness. This time around, it’s about the nature of sequels and brand identity, and whether some series are better off staying in our memories.