Just like how androids dream of electric sheep, Amazon dreams of an ambitious return to the Blade Runner world. Four years after its initial announcement (and five since it’s been in the works), Prime Video has dropped a first look at its upcoming Blade Runner 2099 series, alongside a confirmed premiere date.
Soaked in the neon aesthetic that Ridley Scott’s 1982 original was steeped in, it gives little away about the plot, but establishes replicants as the dominant societal force after the events of the Ryan Gosling-led Blade Runner 2049. “We already fought a war. We lost,” narrates Hunter Schafer’s character. “Replicants, they keep taking it all away. But how much longer until we have nothing? Until we are nothing.”
Starring alongside the Euphoria star is Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All at Once), who plays a dying replicant she has to team up with. Scott returns to the project as executive producer, with Silka Luisa (Shining Girls) serving as showrunner. Other notable cast members include Dimitri Abold (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes), Matthew Needham (House of the Dragon), Daniel Rigby (Renegade Nell), Lewis Gribben (Somewhere Boy), Katelyn Rose Downey (The Nun II), Amy Lennox (Only Child) and Tom Burke (Furiosa).
“Fifty years after the events of Blade Runner 2049, Los Angeles has been reborn, just not by humanity,” reads the official synopsis. “Cora, a fugitive in a final bid to stop running, takes on one last identity: a Blade Runner. Forced to partner with Olwen, a Replicant days from dying, she hunts down a runaway hiding a truth that could collapse their fragile city.”
Blade Runner 2099 will comprise eight episodes and marks the first live-action TV show in franchise history. Harrison Ford starred in the original, which was adapted from Philip K Dick’s 1968 novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and featured a dystopian future setting where synthetic humans known as replicants are bio-engineered by the Tyrell Corporation to work on space colonies. Blade Runner 2049 was released in 2017, following a Blade Runner called K (Gosling) who uncovers a secret that threatens to destabilise society and the course of civilisation, leading him to track down a former Blade Runner who went missing 30 years ago. A trilogy of short films takes place between the two movies, while an anime series titled Blade Runner: Black Lotus aired in 2021.
The show debuts on Prime Video on 25 November.
Si Jia is a casual geek at heart – or as casual as someone with Sephiroth’s theme on her Spotify playlist can get. A fan of movies, games, and Japanese culture, Si Jia’s greatest weakness is the Steam Summer Sale. Or any Steam sale, really.
Kevin Low
