Josiah Hughes / Exclaim
Though it won’t arrive until October 6, 2017, the ever-busy Denis Villeneuve is hard at work on his Ryan Gosling-starring Blade Runner sequel. Now, the movie has a big name attached for its score.
The original Blade Runner score was helmed by the one and only Vangelis, but he won’t be back for the sequel. Instead, that job has been assigned to Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson. Villeneuve previously used Jóhannsson to soundtrack his films Sicario and Prisoners.
In an interview with FACT, Jóhannsson said, “Vangelis is a composer that has been a huge influence on my own work, and not only the Blade Runner score — many of his solo albums have been a rich part of my life for a long time. What I love about his work, which I think is also present in my own work, is his sense of space – the way he uses space, the way he uses silences and this sense of monumentalism in a way.”
When asked if he planned to revisit any of Vangelis’s themes from the original soundtrack, Jóhannsson said it was too early to tell. He added that the score will be “an enormous challenge of mythical proportions.”
Stay tuned for more information on the new Blade Runner film as it becomes available.