Exclusive: Live-Action Blade Runner Series Happening
Blade Runner is getting a live-action series.
Update: In 2022, Ridley Scott confirmed this Giant Freakin Robot exclusive that a Blade Runner live-action series was in development.
Blade Runner has remained one of the cornerstones of science fiction ever since its source material, Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, first hit the shelves in 1968. When the 1982 feature film came around, it changed the face of sci-fi cinema forever. And its sequel, Blade Runner 2049, is a masterpiece in its own right. The series has managed to stay fairly niche in the pop culture landscape due to its heady themes and contemplative nature. However, that could change thanks to some new information we have just obtained.
According to our trusted inside source – the same one that gave us our confirmed exclusive scoops regarding Don Cheadle appearing as War Machine in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Josh Brolin returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Thanos – Blade Runner has a live-action series in development that plans to be sold to a streaming service. There is already an animated series, Blade Runner: Black Lotus, set to premiere sometime this year but it sounds like this new live-action series would be its own standalone project. We are guessing that the makers behind this new live-action series would love to see the show make its way to either Netflix or HBO Max. HBO Max might make the most sense due to Warner Bros. being the United States distributor for the last film. The animated series will also be distributed by Adult Swim, Warner Bros.’ adult animation outlet.
The world of Blade Runner is certainly vast enough to justify an entire series. What will be interesting to discover about this new series is whether or not it will pick up on any specific storylines that we have seen in the two feature films. Will the story of Rick Deckard continue and could we see Harrison Ford appear? Or did Blade Runner 2049 leave that at such a satisfying place that the new series doesn’t want to touch it? When exactly in the timeline of the world would this be set? The original film took place in 2019, so would this series ever acknowledge a bygone future that we have realistically passed? Or would it look even further into the future and show us an even bleaker dystopia? The sky is the limit at this point in regards to where the show could take the audience.
Another big question is just how much money the production company is willing to spend on this Blade Runner series. It ain’t cheap to create the kind of lived-in futurescape that we have seen in the series up to this point. Similar pieces of media like Altered Carbon and Cyberpunk 2077 have gone that same route and have proven just how expensive it can be to make a world like that. If this live-action series is going to work, it is going to take some serious cash on the production’s part.
Here’s hoping that the Blade Runner show can get through the development phase and into production. The series is one of the most rewarding science-fiction creations of the modern age, and getting to return there would be a true treat for fans.
