This past weekend saw the internet get into a collective fit of excitement, thanks to news that Harrison Ford had entered “early talks” for Ridley Scott‘s Blade Runner sequel/prequel/spin-off/whatever. Deckard was coming back!

Not so fast, say the producers. Speaking to Deadline, Alcon Entertainment heads Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson were “adamantly denying” any of these reports, ones which they deemed “absolutely patently false” and “couldn’t sit by.” Expanding on this, Kosove was quoted as saying the following:

“To be clear, what we are trying to do with Ridley now is go through the painstaking process of trying to break the back of the story, figure out the direction we’re going to take the movie and find a writer to work on it. The casting of the movie could not be further from our minds at this moment.”

The tail-end of this quote doesn’t in any way dispel the possibility of Ford returning as the replicant cop, but the rest of his comments are none too encouraging on that front. Not only have they held “no discussion about it,” but, with the plans currently being laid forth, the overall possibility of his casting is “quite unlikely.”

It’s somewhat ironic, then, that all this denying and containment also gave some further insight into what exactly they’re doing here. Insight that’s needed, too; I wasn’t just joking with my designation at the top of the article, because nothing — be it plot, character, or even setting — is clear at the moment. But, Kosove called Prometheus “a good template for what we’re trying to do,” in terms of how Ridley Scott “created something that has some association to the original Alien, but lives on its own as a standalone movie.” Spin-off, then? Or will they categorically deny its status as a direct member of a continuity, only to have the beans spilled over and over during a pre-release period?

Moving back to the focal point of this article, I — unlike a lot of people, I presume — find myself semi-relieved that Ford‘s unlikely to take up Deckard once more. I honestly get the desire to see it happen — it’s the same kind of feeling that powered a fourth Indiana Jones into existence — but if Scott is indeed making something that merely compliments, not follows, the original, bringing on a familiar face would almost surely feel like a creative regression. Not that M. Emmet Walsh is exempt from discussions, but he’s a whole other story.

How do you feel about Ford not coming back for another Blade Runner? Were you hopeful he’d be on board?