We still don't know what will be happening in the film, or how Harrison Ford's Rick Deckard – replicant or not – fits into the story. But now we know that, after years of it existing more as rumour than anything, the Blade Runner sequel will start shooting this July.

Yes, under the watchful eye of Sicario director Denis Villeneuve, working from a script by Hampton Fancher and Michael Green, the future world of Replicants and those that hunt them will be brought back into existence. The one element we do know so far is that the story's set decades after the end of Ridley Scott's 1982 sci-fi classic and will pick up the plot, with Ryan Gosling aboard in some capacity.

News of the shooting date was buried in a report about Sony picking up international distribution rights (Warner Bros. will still handle it in the US), but we don't yet have a confirmed date for this one. Which seems like a smart move in an era where movies go into production with the release target already set, even if the script isn't quite ready. And we're hoping that Ford will deliver a similarly engaged and enthused performed in his return engagement as Deckard than the one he brought to Han Solo in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Source: EmpireOnline