New Blade Runner 2049 trailer is all about Jared Leto’s strange, creepy villain

Warner Bros. has already provided a few trailers for Blade Runner 2049, but the latest international spot is all about Jared Leto’s Niander Wallace.

We already know quite a bit about Niander Wallace. He’s a brilliant scientist who is a powerful force behind the Replicant resurgence over the preceding 30 years. He’s also the man who took over the Tyrell Corporation, the replicant manufacturing company from the first Blade Runner. Leto’s Wallace has a vision of what his ideal future looks like and it just so happens to include the eradication of human beings.

“Humanity can not survive,” Leto says. “Replicants are the future of the species. But I can only make so many.”

Earlier this summer, Warner Bros. released a timeline for the events between the original Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049. After Wallace makes pioneering “advancements in genetically modified food and shares his patents for free, marking an end to a global crisis,” in 2025, he spends the next 11 years working on a new replicant, which he names the Nexus 9. After improving upon “Tyrell’s genetic engineering and memory implantation methods,” Wallace can ensure that the new replicants are obedient and controllable.

The next 13 years, between 2036 and 2049, sees the decline of Los Angeles. People are starving, stealing Wallace’s genetically modified food from vending machines and selling it on the streets. Chaos has erupted, but we don’t know why. In theory, it could be that Wallace’s smarter, more capable replicants have found a way to break free from the control Wallace had over them. We know Ryan Gosling’s Officer K is a Blade Runner for the LAPD, making his relationship with Wallace one of the film’s most important.

Perhaps most importantly, Leto proves in the new trailer that no matter what movie he’s in, he has to be the creepiest guy in the room.

Warner Bros.

Blade Runner 2049 will be released on Oct. 6.