Blade Runner 2049

Now that Blade Runner 2049 is officially a failure, its true life can begin. Indeed, only by becoming a catastrophe—according to The Hollywood Reporter, it will lose at least $80 million for its production company Alcon—could Denis Villeneuve’s film have any chance of being a credibly authentic successor to Sir Ridley Scott’s endlessly imitated 1982 landmark of neon-lit, rain-soaked future noir.

One can only hope that the sequel’s commercial underperformance will necessitate a series of increasingly cynical efforts to fleece ’s admirers with a never-ending succession of alternate, director’s, and we-swear-to-God-it’s-the-final final cuts. Editor Joe Walker has spoken of the existence of a four-hour version—he’s yet to confirm the rumour that it merely comprised the 163-minute theatrical version and 75 minutes of scenes from (1979) inserted at random