Blade Runner 2099 First Trailer Released, And the Sci-fi Franchise Just Expanded the Lore in a Big Way

July 24, 2026, 1:30pm

Ever since the first Blade Runner premiered, the sci-fi franchise has been a niche favorite. Ridley Scott’s original movie may have been a box office disappointment and gotten a mixed critical reception, but the film proved to be influential and beloved to some. That cult community that built up around Blade Runner not only kept it alive for decades, but was able to finally get a sequel off the ground. Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 picked up the baton and delivered a sci-fi legacy sequel that stands alongside the original in a major way. Now, the series is getting bigger again.

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In development for four years now, Blade Runner 2099, another fifty-year leap ahead in the series, has officially revealed its first trailer. Prime Video hosted a panel at San Diego Comic-Con for the series, offering fresh details about its story, the characters that fans will get to meet, and, of course, the premiere date, November 25, 2026. Get a first glimpse at footage from the all-new series, which has confirmed its plot will be pushing the franchise into an exciting new realm, where replicants outnumber humans.

Blade Runner 2099 Trailer Reveals the Next Chapter of the Franchise

It’s been confirmed that in the fifty years between Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 and the brand new TV series, a major war between humans and replicants took place. What becomes clear from the trailer for Blade Runner 2099, though, is that the humans lost. Not only are replicants now calling the shots, which marks a major shift in the power dynamics and lore of the series, but there’s a distinct new visual hue as it largely appears to be set in the daytime.

At the center of Blade Runner 2099 are two characters, Michelle Yeoh’s Olwen and Hunter Schafer’s Cora. It’s already been confirmed that these two will become something of reluctant partners, largely because they come from two different sides of the conflict. Schafer’s character will be a homegrown human, while Yeoh’s Olwen is not only a replicant, but a Blade Runner, hunting down rogue replicants herself.

Yeoh’s character will be pretty distinct for the franchise, but one that fans of the original film may find familiar. Not only will she be embodying that detective mindset that Harrison Ford’s Rick Deckard had (clearly seen in the trailer administering a Voight-Kampff test), but she’ll also harbor some similar characteristics to Rutger Hauer’s Roy Batty as a replicant that knows her time is almost up.

The best news for fans isn’t just that Blade Runner 2099 will premiere on Prime Video this November, but that all eight episodes of the series will be released at once, meaning that Blade Runner officially just took over Thanksgiving.

Yeoh and Schafer are flanked in Blade Runner 2099 by a familiar gente cast, including Dimitri Abold (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes), Lewis Gribben (Somewhere Boy), Katelyn Rose Downey (The Nun II), Daniel Rigby (Renegade Nell), Johnny Harris (A Gentleman in Moscow), Amy Lennox (Only Child), Sheila Atim (The Woman King), Matthew Needham (House of the Dragon), Tom Burke (Furiosa) and Maurizio Lombardi (Ripley).