Back in 2017, director Denis Villeneuve and producer Ridley Scott delivered “Blade Runner 2049,” a legacy sequel to the 1982 film that brought back Harrison Ford as the titular Blade Runner, Deckard. The events of that film left the door open for a direct sequel with a replicant uprising, however, plans for a spinoff series “Blade Runner 2099” from Alcon Entertainment and Scott Free Productions became the priority as it landed at Amazon. A major development has been announced as Variety reports the show has landed director Jeremy Podeswa to helm the pilot and will also executive produce.
Podeswa’s extensive television credits include “Station Eleven,” “Game of Thrones,” “Boardwalk Empire,” “The Handmaid’s Tale,” “True Detective,” “The Pacific,” and Netflix‘s upcoming high-profile sci-fi series adaptation of “Three-Body Problem.”
While the feature films took place in 2019 and 2049 respectively, the spinoff series as the title suggests will jump forward 50 years into the future. Making it less likely we’ll be seeing any returning characters but not completely impossible. Silka Luisa (“Shining Girls”) is the showrunner of “Blade Runner 2099” with Tom Spezialy (“The Leftovers”) recently joining the writers’ room.
The world of “Blade Runner” is based on the novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” authored by the grandfather of the cyberpunk genre, Philip K. Dick. In the midst of huge advancements in technology and efforts to colonize off-world (including the Moon and Mars) the outlook is bleak for those left on Earth as the planet is slowly dying. A workforce made of up replicants, artificial humans, are mistreated and exploited in those aforementioned off-world colonies making them the more sympathetic characters within the sci-fi noir franchise when compared to the cold-hearted killers like Deckard sent to “retire” them.
Casting the main roles for “Blade Runner 2099” will be the next big step and we’ll be extremely curious who they’ll enlist as it might shine a light on what the show is about. We’re still waiting on concrete plot details but exploring the near dozen off-world colonies could be worthwhile for a series spinoff that aims to separate itself from the Earthbound stories.