Forty years ago, director Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner movie redefined sci-fi with its vision of the future. Now, Scott is moving the franchise even further down the timeline. Deadline is reporting that a Blade Runner 2099 series is in development at Amazon Prime Video. Scott had previously said that a pilot script had already been written, and he remains attached as an executive producer. Additionally, there is a possibility that Scott may direct the show if it gets picked up.
According to Deadline, Prime Video is fast-tracking the potential series, which already has Silka Luisa (AppleTV+’s Shining Girls) as the showrunner, writer, and executive producer. Blade Runner 2099 is being produced by Amazon Studios, Scott Free Productions, and Alcon Entertainment, the production company behind Prime Video’s The Expanse. Prime Video is reportedly already looking at production start dates and scripts.
The original Blade Runner film was released in 1982, and it was based on Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, a sci-fi novel originally published in 1968. In the movie, Harrison Ford appeared as Rick Deckard, a Blade Runner who was assigned to hunt down dangerous Replicants that could pass for humans. The film was ambiguous about whether Deckard himself was a Replicant.
Ford returned in 2017 for Blade Runner 2049, which was directed by Denis Villeneuve. That film followed Ryan Gosling’s K, a Replicant who worked as a Blade Runner himself. After suspecting that he may be half-human, K sets out to find Deckard in order to learn the truth.
Blade Runner 2099 is set 50 years after the previous film, so it seems unlikely that either K or Deckard could return. But nothing is impossible in the realm of sci-fi. There is also a Blade Runner: Black Lotus animated series that was created for Adult Swim and Crunchyroll, but that show is set between the first two movies.
Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson will executive produce Blade Runner 2099 with Blade Runner 2049 co-writer Michael Green. Ben Roberts, Cynthia Yorkin, David W. Zucker, and Clayton Krueger are also attached as executive producers.
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