Blade Runner 2099 Live-Action Series Happening
Blade Runner 2099 is on the way!
This article is more than 2 years old
With every other popular, somewhat popular, and even actively hated franchise getting reboots, spinoffs, sequels, and remakes, you didn’t think Blade Runner was getting left behind, did you? Just like Ridley Scott’s other eighties sci-fi franchise Alien, the dystopian world of replicants and replicant hunters has withstood the test of time, and a sequel series is officially on the way. The live-action series Blade Runner 2099 is in development at Amazon Studios.
Deadline reported the news on Friday, adding that Ridley Scott — the director of 1982’s Blade Runner and almost certainly the busiest 84-year-old working in Hollywood — will be helming Blade Runner 2099. Silvia Luisa, who is also the showrunner for the upcoming Apple TV+ thriller series Shining Girls, will be writing the show and an executive producer. The writers’ room is still not fully staffed and it’s far too early to have confirmed word on release dates or cast. However, Deadline notes that Amazon is eager to get the show into production, is fast-tracking any scripts, and is already considering production dates.
That Ridley Scott is working on a live-action Blade Runner series actually isn’t very stunning news. Courtesy of one of our trusted and proved sources, we exclusively reported that a live-action series from the beloved franchise was on the way last year. The Hollywood Reporter confirmed our story in November, though at the time no studio was attached. Also missing was the title Blade Runner 2099.
The choice of the year 2099 is interesting, representing the biggest time jump so far in the franchise. There were 30 years between the first film and 2017’s Blade Runner 2049. Now the live-action series will jump ahead half a century. Not only does it make you curious about how the franchise’s fictional world will be shown to have changed in 50 years, but it does raise an interesting possibility.
Not long after our scoop about the Blade Runner live action series was confirmed, we received a new report that Ridley Scott was hoping to bring Harrison Ford back once more as Rick Deckard for the show. However, at the time, it wasn’t known the Blade Runner story was jumping ahead to 2099. This could mean that Ford turned Scott down, or there is another intriguing possibility.
Back in 2014, Ridley Scott responded to the fan theory that, in Blade Runner, Deckard is himself a replicant. In a rare case of a director agreeing with the fans on such theories, Scott said Harrison Ford’s character is “definitely” a replicant. This is neither confirmed nor debunked in Blade Runner 2049, but the sequel does give us more reasons to think Deckard is a replicant. For example, K (Ryan Gosling) finds Deckard hiding out in a radioactive wasteland, with no obvious means of surviving in such a place, presumably for years. In other words, if Ridley Scott did want to finally confirm on screen that Rick Deckard is a replicant, having him appear decades after he should’ve died of natural causes would be a good way to go about it.
Of course that’s only speculation. As far as Blade Runner 2099 is concerned, speculation will make up a good percentage of what we have for a while. When we know more, so will you.
