50 Fun Facts About Blade Runner 2049

Which Blade Runner 2049 star accidentally punched Ryan Gosling in the face while filming a fight scene?

Harrison Ford says only one of his many punches landed; he then took a bottle of scotch to Gosling's dressing room, poured him a single glass and walked out with the rest.

In Blade Runner 2049, what is the name of Ryan Gosling's character, K, short for?

His serial number, KD6-3.7: replicants are made, not born, so he has no name, and when Joi decides he must have been born after all, the first thing she does is give him a real one.

In Blade Runner 2049, what does K find buried beneath a dead tree at Sapper Morton's farm?

A replicant's skeleton: the bones show she died in childbirth, which was thought impossible, and Lt. Joshi orders K to destroy every trace for fear of a war between humans and replicants.

In Blade Runner 2049, which origami animal does the retired Gaff fold while K questions him?

A sheep, perhaps a nod to Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which inspired both films; it follows the chicken and the unicorn Gaff folded around Deckard in 1982.

In Blade Runner 2049, what does Niander Wallace want from the secret of replicant reproduction?

Faster interstellar colonisation: Wallace boasts of taking humanity to nine new worlds but says he can never assemble enough replicants to go further, so he wants ones that can breed.

Who plays the replicant maker Niander Wallace in Blade Runner 2049?

Jared Leto wore opaque contact lenses, modelled on the eyes of his blind acting coach, so that he truly could not see on set; Villeneuve likened his entrance to 'seeing Jesus walking into a temple'.

Which late musician was Denis Villeneuve's first choice to play Niander Wallace in Blade Runner 2049?

David Bowie: Villeneuve felt 'there is so much David Bowie in the first Blade Runner' and was about to approach him when he read of the singer's death in January 2016, months before filming.

In Blade Runner 2049, what is the name of Niander Wallace's replicant enforcer, played by Sylvia Hoeks?

Luv: K tells her that being named by Wallace must make her special, and she later boasts to him, 'I'm the best one'.

Who plays Joi, K's holographic girlfriend, in Blade Runner 2049?

Ana de Armas was a television star in Spain but moved to Los Angeles speaking no English, so she spent four months in full-day classes before auditioning, and her team had to push to get her in the room.

In Blade Runner 2049, Deckard greets K with a line about toasted cheese from which adventure novel?

Treasure Island: Deckard borrows the marooned Ben Gunn's plea for a piece of cheese, K names the book at once, and Deckard mutters, 'He reads. That's good.'

In Blade Runner 2049, which toy from K's implanted childhood memory turns out to be real?

A wooden horse: K finds it wrapped in cloth inside an orphanage furnace, exactly where his memory says he hid it from the other children, and takes it as proof that the memory really happened.

In Blade Runner 2049, who is Dr. Ana Stelline?

A designer of replicant memories: sealed in a sterile chamber because of a weak immune system, she tells K that real memories are messy, since 'we recall with our feelings'.

In Blade Runner 2049, which word does K repeat again and again during his baseline test?

Interlinked: the test's lines come from Nabokov's novel Pale Fire, and Ryan Gosling helped rework the scene, borrowing a word-and-repeat drill that actors use to learn Shakespeare.

Which actress plays Lieutenant Joshi, K's LAPD superior, in Blade Runner 2049?

Robin Wright's House of Cards schedule held up her casting and shaped the look: the hair team could not cut or colour her hair, so Joshi wears a slicked-back version of her bob from the series.

In Blade Runner 2049, where does K find Deckard hiding?

The radioactive ruins of Las Vegas: a radiation trace leads K to the dead city, where Deckard lives alone in an empty casino with only a dog and his whisky for company.

In Blade Runner 2049, which replicant from the original film is revealed to be the mother of Deckard's child?

Rachael: she fled Los Angeles with Deckard at the end of the 1982 film, and the sequel reveals that she died giving birth, something no replicant was thought able to do.

In Blade Runner 2049, what does Niander Wallace offer Deckard in return for the child's whereabouts?

A copy of his lost love: Deckard rejects the replica with four words, 'Her eyes were green', and Wallace has it shot on the spot before sending him away to be tortured.

In Blade Runner 2049, what name does Joi give K once she believes he was born rather than made?

Joe: 'a real boy needs a real name', Joi tells him, but a giant advert for the same product later calls K 'a good Joe', a hint that the name is a line she gives every customer.

Which Guardians of the Galaxy actor plays Sapper Morton, the replicant K retires as Blade Runner 2049 opens?

Dave Bautista also plays Sapper in the prequel short 2048: Nowhere to Run, where he beats off thugs attacking a mother and daughter and, in doing so, gives himself away as a replicant.

Which actor from the 1982 Blade Runner returns as Gaff in Blade Runner 2049?

Edward James Olmos, who invented Gaff's street slang Cityspeak for the 1982 film, had four scenes in the original and just one here, which he called 'a poignant little scene'.

In the final scene of Blade Runner 2049, what is falling on K as he lies dying on the steps?

Snow: mortally wounded while freeing Deckard, K lies back on the steps and looks up at the falling flakes while Deckard goes inside to meet his child.

Which Vangelis cue, reworked for Blade Runner 2049, plays over K's death?

Tears in the Rain: it first played as Roy Batty died in the 1982 film, and the sequel's co-writer pointed to it when asked if K really dies, surprised that anyone doubted it.

Which composer joined Blade Runner 2049 late in post-production, taking over from Jóhann Jóhannsson?

Hans Zimmer joined about two months before release and, with Benjamin Wallfisch, wrote a new score after Villeneuve decided the film 'needed to go back to something closer to Vangelis'.

In Blade Runner 2049, a few notes of which Prokofiev piece play whenever Joi is switched on?

Peter and the Wolf: its opening bars chime each time Joi starts up, including from the emanator, the portable projector K buys her so that she can leave the apartment with him.

In which country was Blade Runner 2049 mostly filmed?

Hungary: the filmmakers scouted London first but found no stage space free, so they moved to studios outside Budapest that had recently housed The Martian.

In Blade Runner 2049, a hologram of which singer croons in Deckard's apartment?

Frank Sinatra: the hologram was a nod to the late Bud Yorkin, the producer who had held the Blade Runner rights and who directed Sinatra in Come Blow Your Horn.

Who was the cinematographer of Blade Runner 2049, on his third film with Denis Villeneuve?

Roger Deakins shot almost all of it with a single camera, turning down a line producer who expected him to need as many as nine units, because he thinks that way of working is sloppy.

Which two Academy Awards did Blade Runner 2049 win?

Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects, from five nominations: the camera prize went to a veteran who had been nominated thirteen times before and had gone home empty-handed every time.

The Los Angeles of Blade Runner 2049 drew on images of which smog-bound Asian capital?

Beijing: the filmmakers also studied London's concrete landmarks, Bangladeshi shipyards and Saharan dust storms, wanting a future that felt possible from what is already happening today.

What single word did Denis Villeneuve give the costume and production designers of Blade Runner 2049 as their brief?

Brutal: costume designer Renée April 'made it tougher' from there, banning zippers and plastic because 'we did not want to do something science-fiction'.

Blade Runner 2049's first cut ran nearly four hours, and the team briefly weighed doing what with it?

Releasing it as two films: the film's editor split the assembly in half just to get through viewings, but Villeneuve says the idea 'didn't get out of the editing room' and that he dislikes extended cuts.

Which video-game company's giant neon logo lights up Los Angeles in Blade Runner 2049, as in the 1982 film?

Atari: the sequel keeps the alternate timeline of the original, so companies that faded in real life, Pan Am among them, still tower over 2049's streets on skyscraper-sized billboards.

When Alcon Entertainment bought the Blade Runner rights, which one thing was left out of the deal?

A remake of the original film: those rights were not for sale, which suited Alcon's co-chief, who said after its Point Break redo flopped, 'I never want to be involved in a remake again.'

Which director signed on to make a new Blade Runner film in 2011, then stepped back to executive produce?

Ridley Scott was announced as director in August 2011 but gave way as his other films piled up; he stayed on as executive producer and says he helped shape the script without taking a credit.

Which Spielberg film had to drop a Blade Runner-set scene because Alcon refused permission?

Ready Player One: Alcon feared the homage would hurt its own sequel, so Spielberg swapped the novel's Blade Runner scene for a sequence set inside the Overlook Hotel from The Shining.

Shinichirō Watanabe, director of the prequel short Blade Runner Black Out 2022, is best known for which anime series?

Cowboy Bebop: its director set his short three years after the first film, showing the blackout that wipes out the records of who is a replicant, and had Flying Lotus write the music.

In Blade Runner 2049, which living creatures does K find thriving outside Deckard's hideout?

Bees: K's heat-seeking drone picks out their hives among giant statues, the only sign of life in the place, and he traces them onward to find Deckard.

In 2024 the producers of Blade Runner 2049 sued which carmaker over AI images shown at a robotaxi launch?

Tesla: Alcon says it refused a request to use the film at the launch on the Warner Bros. lot, and that AI-made images, one with a Ryan Gosling look-alike, went on screen anyway.

Blade Runner 2049 gave Ryan Gosling his biggest opening weekend until which later film overtook it?

Barbie broke the record six years later; the sequel's debut had beaten Gosling's previous best, Crazy, Stupid, Love, and topped the chart, yet came in far below the $43-47 million that trackers expected.

Which star of the 1982 Blade Runner said Blade Runner 2049 had no humor, no love and no soul?

Rutger Hauer, the original's Roy Batty, said the first film asked what it means to be human, 'like E.T.', and that he could not tell what question the sequel was asking.

Which commitment forced Blade Runner 2049 to finish Ryan Gosling's scenes by Thanksgiving 2016?

Press for La La Land: Gosling was due in New York to promote the musical, so the producers, already running behind schedule, had to get him off the set before the holiday.

The flying police car K drives in Blade Runner 2049 was a product placement for which French carmaker?

Peugeot: Alcon's 2019 lawsuit says the carmaker, eyeing a return to the American market, promised a fee and $30 million of advertising for a few seconds on screen, then never ran the campaign.

Which Oscar winner stars in Blade Runner 2099, Amazon's series set fifty years after Blade Runner 2049?

Michelle Yeoh plays Olwen, a replicant with only days to live, who is paired with Hunter Schafer's Cora, a fugitive who takes on the identity of a blade runner.

Why did Blade Runner 2049 cancel the red carpet at its Los Angeles premiere?

A mass shooting days earlier: a gunman had killed dozens of festival-goers two days before, so the studios dropped the red carpet in light of the tragedy and the Dolby Theatre screening went ahead without it.

Michael Green, co-writer of Blade Runner 2049, earned an Oscar nomination for which other 2017 film?

Logan: Green had been hired in 2013 to rework a Blade Runner script by Hampton Fancher, co-writer of the 1982 original, and the part of K was written with Ryan Gosling in mind.

Which California city has become a vast rubbish dump in Blade Runner 2049?

San Diego: it is now the trash heap of Los Angeles, where scavengers harpoon K's flying car out of the sky and orphans are put to work stripping the junk for metal.

In Blade Runner 2049, what does the rebel leader Freysa reveal to K about the child he seeks?

It was a girl: the boy in the birth records was a false trail, so K is not the miracle child he had come to believe he was, and Freysa tells him, 'We all wish it was us.'

El-P, whose music for the first Blade Runner 2049 trailer was 'rejected (or ignored)', is half of which rap duo?

Run the Jewels: El-P shared a snippet of the unused cue online, said even being asked to demo it was an honour, and noted that he played it on a Yamaha CS-80, the synth Vangelis used in 1982.

Which science-fiction novel did Denis Villeneuve adapt for his next film after Blade Runner 2049?

Dune: his first film covered only half of Frank Herbert's novel, and the second part was not given the go-ahead until after it had opened in 2021.

Which actress plays the replicant sex worker Mariette in Blade Runner 2049?

Mackenzie Davis defended the film's treatment of women, calling it 'pretty self-aware about a pornographic economy that has reduced the roles of women to sheer consumption'.