As predicted, we’re finally getting details and images (and I’d bet a trailer soon) from the new, highly anticipated Blade Runner 2099 series all the way from SDCC 2026.
Showrunner Silka Luisa has been revealing details of the new series which, obviously, takes place fifty years after Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049. And it’s a world you’ll recognise but also one that has gone through a big change from the one we last saw in the movies.
But first, how did this show actually happen?
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Luisa says it was thanks in large part to Blade Runner creator Ridley Scott and Blade Runner 2049 writer Michael Green, that this new series happened: “I came in with the pitch and basic concept for the show, the characters, and all of that, but Michael [Green] had been through writing 2049. He knew the world really well. He knew the pitfalls. He knew the strengths. He understood how to build out the kind of noir mystery for it. And so he was very helpful.”
As for Scott, Luisa describes meeting him as a “once in a lifetime” event.
“It was really important for Ridley to be a part of the development process,” she says, “Because both visually and in terms of story, there are mythological canon points in his film that we’re touching, and it was really important to both get his blessing and have his insight into what his original intentions were.”
But what is the series in relation to the original movie(s)? Luisa says: “We stayed very true to the noir principles of Blade Runner. And there’s a mystery at the heart of the show that looks both forwards and backwards in terms of mythology that fans are gonna be very excited about.”
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But now comes the big change for the series… the humans lost the battle against the Replicants.
“There’s been a replicant uprising that feels like it’s been bubbling up,” Lousia explains, “And between 2049 and 2099, that’s happened. So the war has happened and the humans have lost. Our worst fears imagined.
“The replicants are now the power brokers of the city and humans are the second-class citizens.
Interestingly, Luisa says they used Philip K Dick’s iconic novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Anyone familiar with Dick’s novel and Scott’s movie will know that, while the movie is inspired by the book, there’s a chasm between the two… but there’s also a richness to the book that the movie, while it defined sci-fi for a generation and is still the benchmark for dystopian sci-fi, was missing.
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That’s a richness the series, according to Luisa, had the luxury of building upon: “We did return to the book for a lot of the world building,” she says.
“Because it’s a TV show and you have so many more hours to fill, we have this great opportunity to actually build out the world, and to go to other places, and to build out parts of history and parts of the universe that I feel like fans have been really curious about and just haven’t gotten to see yet. And the book was really helpful in helping us guide us where we could do that.”
As I wrote already, this new series is set far in the future of this world and Luisa wants to make sure we know there is no chance of a Harrison Ford or Ryan Gosling cameo, but rather this time we meet Michelle Yeoh’s replicant Blade Runner, Olwen.
“She is hunting down a group of missing rogue replicants. She’s in the final days of her life, so she knows she has only days left to live because replicants know down to the day when they’re gonna die. It’s certain and it’s definitive.
“Her story is very much taking the Roy Batty [Rutger Hauer] story from the first film. We’re telling it from the replicant’s point of view.”
It is this knowledge of your own time of death that will fuel the show: “We have the benefit of television where you have all of the hours that you could want to explore the nuances of this very relatable and human fear of not wanting to die.
“There’s something about the idea that you’re not winding down when you die. You’re spiraling out. There’s a volatility, a danger, and a desperation to it, which I think Michelle really tapped into in her performance.”
The second lead is Euphoria star Hunter Schafer, who plays Olwen’s partner, Cora, a human pretending to be a replicant who, Luisa says, has been on the run from Blade Runners but now is pretending to be one.
Luisa’s enthusiasm certainly seems to be the real deal and I really hope this can stand up to the Blade Runner legacy and, it seems, so does she: “There is so much legacy with Blade Runner. Every person who touched the show in any way is a huge fan. Everyone was very well aware of the weight of what we were doing, and we did it with great care. And when you’re taking on something like this, you’re very thoughtful and deliberate about each step. That is why it has taken so long, because we wanted to make sure we got it right.”
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I love the world of Blade Runner ever since watching it with my dad in the early 1980s at a much too young age and being in equal parts terrifed – Daryl Hanna’s Pris’ death was so scary to me then, the way she screamed as Harrison Ford’s Deckard shot her – and absolutely blown away by this world Ridley Scott had created, I remember even thhen feeling immersed in it in a way that totally alien to the young boy I was.
Anyways, I full expect a trailer and release date to be revealed in the next day or two… dare we hope for a 2026 release?
Thoughts? I know you have them and I wanna hear ’em all!
Check out the new images:
Source: EW
Marc
Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….
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