Denis Villeneuve wanted to keep Harrison Ford’s Blade Runner 2049 return a secret

Warner Bros. went to some pretty extreme lengths in an effort to keep Blade Runner 2049’s secrets, restricting journalists from revealing certain plot points in their reviews in an effort to “preserve the magic of the film”.

However, had it been down to director Denis Villeneuve, we’d have known even less going into the movie – so much so that he’d have kept Harrison Ford’s return as Rick Deckard under wraps.

“Listen, as a film director I would love to keep everything a secret, I would love the audience just to trust and come to the theater having not seen anything of the movie,” Villeneuve told Empire. “Because of course, when you design the film you try to create surprises, tension… at the end of the day it would have been tough because everyone knew that Harrison was on the project, but yes, the answer I would have loved the audience not to know how he appears, where he appears, yeah.”

Given that Blade Runner 2049 was coming off the back of Ford’s return as Han Solo in the phenomenally successful Star Wars: The Force Awakens, it’s no surprise that Ford was front and centre in the marketing campaign for the movie. From a box office perspective, it seemed to make very little difference however, with the $185 million-budgeted blockbuster grossing just under $260 million worldwide from its run last year.

SEE ALSO: Denis Villeneuve rules out an extended cut of Blade Runner 2049

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Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K (Ryan Gosling), unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what’s left of society into chaos. K’s discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years.

Blade Runner 2049 sees Harrison Ford reprising the role of Rick Deckard alongside Ryan Gosling, Ana de Armas, Sylvia Hoeks, Robin Wright, Mackenzie Davis, Carla Juri, Lennie James, Dave Bautista, Jared Leto and Edward James Olmos.