When it was confirmed in February that Harrison Ford will reprise his role as Rick Deckard in Alcon Entertainment's Blade Runner sequel, you may have immediately started wondering who would join him in the new neo-noir, as Deckard's sure to run into memorable characters of both the human and replicant varieties. Though we don't know who he'd play, it's been revealed that Ryan Gosling is in talks to star alongside Ford in Denis Villeneuve's Blade Runner sequel that's slated to start shooting next summer:

Press Release (via The Hollywood News) -- "LOS ANGELES, CA, APRIL 16, 2015 – Ryan Gosling is in negotiations to star in Alcon Entertainment’s sequel to BLADE RUNNER, being directed by Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners) and executive produced by Ridley Scott.

Harrison Ford will co-star as Rick Deckard, the role he portrayed in the original directed by Scott.

Principal photography is set to start in summer of 2016. Hampton Fancher (co-writer of the original) and Michael Green have written the original screenplay based on an idea by Fancher and Scott.

The story takes place several decades after the conclusion of the 1982 original. Story details, as well as Gosling’s character, are not being revealed.

Gosling will be seen next in Shane Black’s The Nice Guys opposite Russell Crowe, and in Terrence Malick’s Weightless. He is currently in production starring opposite Christian Bale, Brad Pitt and Steve Carrell in The Big Short.

Villeneuve’s upcoming feature film Sicario, a drug-trafficking drama starring Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro from Black Label Media, has been recently announced in Competition at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. Villeneuve previously worked with Kosove and Johnson as the director of Alcon’s critically acclaimed Prisoners.

Alcon Entertainment acquired the prequel and sequel film, television and ancillary franchise rights to the iconic science-fiction thriller BLADE RUNNER in 2011 from producers Bud Yorkin and Cynthia Sikes Yorkin, who will serve as producers on the sequel along Alcon Entertainment co-founders and co-CEO’s Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson.

Frank Giustra and Tim Gamble, CEO’s of Thunderbird Films, will serve as executive producers.

Among its many distinctions, BLADE RUNNER has been singled out as one of the greatest movies of all time by innumerable polls and media outlets, and overwhelmingly as the greatest science-fiction film of all time by a majority of genre publications.

Released by Warner Bros., BLADE RUNNER was adapted by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples from Philip K. Dick’s novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” and was directed by Ridley Scott following his landmark Alien.” The film was nominated for two Academy Awards (Best Visual Effects, and Best Art Direction).

BLADE RUNNER was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” The film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 1993 and is frequently taught in university courses. In 2007, it was named the 2nd most visually influential film of all time by the Visual Effects Society.

ABOUT ALCON ENTERTAINMENT

Co-founders and co-CEO’s Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson founded Alcon Entertainment in 1997 with partner Frederick W. Smith, the Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of FedEx. Warner Bros. distributes Alcon’s motion pictures via the companies’ long-term output distribution agreement.

Alcon has financed and produced, and/or co-financed/produced 29 films to date, including “My Dog Skip,” the Academy Award nominated Best Picture “The Blind Side,” which earned Sandra Bullock a Best Actress Oscar; “The Book of Eli,” starring Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman; “Insomnia,” starring Al Pacino, Robin Williams, and Hilary Swank and directed by Chris Nolan; “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants;” “P.S. I Love You,” starring Hilary Swank; the critically acclaimed “Prisoners,” a dramatic thriller directed by Denis Villeneuve starring Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis, Melissa Leo, Terrance Howard and Paul Dano, and the family hit “Dolphin Tale 2,” a sequel to its original starring Morgan Freeman, Harry Connick Jr., Ashley Judd and Kris Kristofferson. Alcon is currently in production on “Point Break,” a reimagining of the classic action movie filming on four continents starring Edgar Ramirez, Luke Bracey, and Ray Winstone. The Company is also developing a sequel to “Blade Runner” with Ridley Scott.

Alcon Television Group is currently producing a four-hour mini-series documentary for HBO about the life and times of Frank Sinatra, directed Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney; and “The Expanse,” a space thriller for Syfy Network."

  • Derek Anderson
    About the Author - Derek Anderson

    Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.

    When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.