Blade Runner 2099 Series Gets Big Update

Executive producer Michael Green is enthusiastic about the footage he has seen so far.

By Russ Burlingame

Production is underway for Blade Runner 2099, the upcoming Prime Video limited series that continues on the story of Blade Runner and its decades-later sequel Blade Runner 2049. The series stars Michelle Yeoh as a Replicant which is nearing the end of its lifespan in the series. Dimitri Abold (The Hunger Games franchise), Katelyn Rose Downey (The Nun II), Lewis Gribben (Somewhere Boy), and Daniel Rigby (Renegade Nell) will join Blade Runner 2099 as series regulars alongside Hunter Schaeffer and Yeoh. Some recurring guest stars are on the way as well with Amy Lennox (Holby City), Johnny Harris (A Gentleman In Moscow), Sheila Atim (The Woman King) and Matthew Needham (House of the Dragon) filling those roles. 

The project has spent a few years in development, then went into production only to be halted by last year's writers and actors strikes. One of the producers has confirmed it's back in action, and that things are looking good.

The franchise, based on the novel Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, has a complicated history in Hollywood, with the first movie losing money at the box office but becoming one of the most acclaimed and influential science fiction movies of all time. Years later and with the reputation of the original now solidified, Harrison Ford returned for Blade Runner 2049, hoping for a victory lap...but then that movie also underperformed relative to studio expectations.  

"We're filming now," executive producer Michael Green told The Direct. "Showrunner Silka Luisa has created an incredible show. I've seen dailies. They're stunning. I've read the script. You know, they've seen the scripts. I am very excited for how she's evolved the world and made it bigger. It's a really impressive, intelligent, emotional story."

Ridley Scott's 1982 Blade Runner kickstarted the screen franchise, but in spite of becoming an instant cult classic, the movie didn't get a sequel for 35 years. In 2017, Ryan Gosling joined Ford for Blade Runner 2049, and while that movie didn't spawn future installments in the film franchise, producers and studios have been buzzing about Blade Runner's potential ever since.

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Blade Runner 2099 will be showrun by Silka Luisa (Shining Girls, who will serve as executive producer along with Scott, Alcon Entertainment co-founders Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson, Alcon's President of Television Ben Roberts, David W. Zucker and Clayton Krueger from Scott Free Productions, Tom Spezialy, Richard Sharkey, Michael Green, Cynthia Yorkin, Frank Giustra and Isa Dick Hackett. Per Deadline, Shōgun's Jonathan van Tulleken will be directing the first two episodes and also serve as EP, with Steven Johnson as co-executive producer.

There is no official release date set for Blade Runner 2099 yet, although the smart money is on late 2025 or early 2026.

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