Amazon Studios has officially announced that a live-action small-screen spin-off of the Blade Runner franchise is currently in development. The series is said to be a direct sequel to Denis Villeneuve's Blade Runner 2049, which was a follow-up to Ridley Scott's original 1982 cult classic. Scott is serving as an executive producer on this new series, which will be backed by his production company Scott Free Productions. Silka Luisa, who will act as showrunner on the upcoming Elisabeth Moss vehicle Shining Girls, will write and executive produce the first live-action Blade Runner television series.
Scott has actually expressed interest in directing some episodes of the series, but it has not yet been confirmed if he actually will. The show has entered priority development at Amazon Studios, which means the process of creating the first season will happen exponentially faster than other projects that are in development. Additional writers are currently being sought out, and even production start dates are being discussed. This means that audiences may be able to see replicants take over the small screen way sooner than expected.
The original Blade Runner, which was based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, takes place in dystopian 2019 and tells the story of Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), who works as a Blade Runner, a cop of sorts whose job is to permanently "retire" androids known to the public as replicants. Although Scott's sci-fi epic was a box office bomb and misunderstood by critics at the time of its initial release, it became one of the most well-known cult classics of all time and is considered by many to be one of the best science-fiction films ever made.
It's 2017 sequel, Blade Runner 2049, which starred Ford and Ryan Gosling, was also a box-office bomb but was critically acclaimed, earning a certified fresh score of 88 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Although this upcoming series is the first live-action small screen adaptation of Blade Runner, an anime called Blade Runner: Black Lotus started airing this past November, which was a joint production between Adult Swim and Crunchyroll.
The new series will be set 50 years after the events of Blade Runner: 2049. This is the second TV adaptation of a classic Ridley Scott film that is currently in development, the other being an Alien series that is being made for FX. Since Scott has already teased this new Blade Runner project before the official announcement, it should be safe to assume that more details will begin to pour out within the next few months.