10 Movie Secrets They Actually Managed To Keep Before The Film Started

Warner Bros.' marketing campaign for Blade Runner 2049 was nothing if not ballsy, offering little of a "way in" for new fans of the franchise, making no clear indication of how big Harrison Ford's role would actually be, and keeping fans largely in the dark about the nature of Ryan Gosling's protagonist K.

Only when the review embargo lifted on release week was it even confirmed that K was a replicant, yet the prevailing assumption pre-release had been that K would actually be Deckard's (Ford) son.

The genius of K's arc in Blade Runner 2049 is that despite the film identifying him as a replicant early on, it spends a huge chunk of its runtime implying that he is also the organically born replicant-human son of Deckard and Rachael (Sean Young), despite this ultimately not being the case.

In a terrific subversion of the tired Chosen One trope, the third act reveals that K really was a mere replicant all along, and the child is actually a relatively minor character, Dr. Ana Stelline (Carla Juri).

Nobody saw this rug-pull coming, in large part due to the entire project being shrouded in so much mystery right up to release, even if that may ultimately have harmed its box office bottom line.