Blade Runner 2049 Is 'One Of The Most Expensive' R-Rated Films Ever

Anyone expecting a watered down cartoony revival of Blade Runner can rest easy. The MPAA has officially given the upcoming sequel Blade Runner 2049 an R rating. According to the MPAA, it will receive an R for “Violence, some sexuality, nudity, and language.” This turns out to be exactly the reason the original film received an R rating upon its release 35 years ago.

After a decade of many large-scale movies avoiding the R rating, there has been some recent flirting with harsher genre films. Both Deadpool and Logan were rated R and both were very well received. Though, according to some reports, Blade Runner 2049 clocked in at around 200 million, making it more expensive than Deadpool and Logan combined. The Trailers have been consistently gorgeous and the original is widely regarded as one of the greatest Sci-Fi films ever made, so normally I wouldn’t consider it such a reach for the film to make money. However, my Player.One compatriot Andrew Whalen has found the film is not as beloved by younger generations, so the R rating does carry some risk.

The film stars Ryan Gosling as a young Blade Runner searching for Harrison Ford’s Rick Deckard. We know little about the story other than that, though it will also feature Jared Leto as a possible villain and replicant manufacturer and Robin Wright, one of my personal favorite actors.

Here’s the official synopsis from Warner Brothers:

“Officer K (Ryan Gosling), a new blade runner for the Los Angeles Police Department, unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what’s left of society into chaos. His discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), a former blade runner who’s been missing for 30 years.”

Denis Villeneuve of Arrival fame will direct. Villeneuve favors slows tracking and zoom shots that, if the trailers are to be believed, fit very well with the Blade Runner universe. Arrival aside, Villeneuve’s directing tends to be a little cold, which will be an interesting contrast to the original film which had very emphatic directing and an emotionally driven storyline. Roger Deakins is shooting the film, and at the very least it looks like it will be gorgeous.

Villeneuve himself has expressed fear about the rating, in a December interview with Screen Daily he said: “My producers are finding it fun to remind me that it will be one of the most expensive R-rated independent feature films ever made."

Obviously, an R rating alone is a not a sign that the movie will be good, but it is a sign that studios are at least starting to loosen up on the tight constraints that have seemed to grip big budget genre movies for years. As for me, I’m quite glad the film has an R rating and I hope it does well. I’m sick of every movie having to be made for babies.