Blade Runner 2099: Amazon, Ridley Scott begin work on live-action TV series

Amazon Studios has begun developing a live-action TV series set in the Blade Runner universe, according to reporting from entertainment industry publication Deadline.

The series will be titled Blade Runner 2099, and it will follow 2017’s Blade Runner 2049, which was directed by Denis Villeneuve (Arrival, Dune). The Amazon series will be executive-produced by Ridley Scott, who directed the original 1982 Blade Runner film.

Deadline claims that Scott may direct at least some episodes himself once the series moves forward. Currently, 2099 is staffing up its writer’s room, so it’s not far along yet. Silka Luisa (The Wilding, Strange Angel, Shining Girls) will also write and executive-produce the series. Blade Runner 2049 co-writer Michael Green is among the series’ numerous producers.

Blade Runner 2099 will be a joint production between Amazon Studios, Scott’s Scott Free Productions, and Alcon Entertainment, a company behind another sci-fi TV series, The Expanse.

2099 is the second Blade Runner TV project to see the light of day in recent years—there was also the Adult Swim/Crunchyroll anime series Blade Runner: Black Lotus—but it will be the first live-action series in the franchise.

The original 1982 film was based loosely on the Philip K. Dick sci-fi novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. Amazon previously streamed a TV series titled Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams, which presented standalone adaptations of various Philip K. Dick stories.

This new series’ path to the small screen has been driven chiefly by Ridley Scott himself, who began shopping it to streamers last year. It’s not his first foray into cerebral sci-fi streaming TV shows, either; he is also executive producer and occasional director of HBO Max’s Raised By Wolves.

There’s no word of when Blade Runner 2099 will premiere, but it will likely be a bit of a wait, since production has not yet begun.

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