Denis Villeneuve is set to begin filming Blade Runner 2 this summer, and as pre-production picks up steam, so do the casting announcements for the highly-anticipated project— which means this thing is absolutely happening. Robin Wright has joined Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford in the long-awaited sequel to Ridley Scott’s sci-fi classic (and arguable masterpiece, depending on which version you’re watching), snatching up one of three major female roles in the film.

THR reports that Wright is in the final stages of signing on for Blade Runner 2, reportedly claiming one of the three leading roles for women in Villeneuve’s ambitious project. Although plot and character details are scarce, we do know that Ford is reprising his role as Rick Deckard in the sequel, which is set several decades after Scott’s original Blade Runner.

Wright should fit in well with the Blade Runner universe — she has a face and almost indefinable elegance that were practically engineered for sci-fi, and if you need any additional evidence, check out The Congress.

Villeneuve will direct from a screenplay co-written by Michael Green with original Blade Runner scribe Hampton Fancher, with Roger Deakins returning as cinematographer. When we spoke with Deakins last fall, he said he wasn’t interested in replicating (ha) his work on the 1982 film, and assured us that the sequel is “an entirely separate movie” from its predecessor.

Blade Runner 2 is currently slated for a January 2018 release, though it seems quite likely that date will change to something slightly later or perhaps even earlier, depending on the production schedule. In the meantime, we won’t have to wait too much longer to see a sci-fi flick from Villeneuve, whose Story of Your Life hits theaters later this year.

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