It’s a very bad time to be a replicant, but that makes it a very good time to be a fan of Ridley Scott’s 1983 sci-fi masterpiece Blade Runner. Not only did we receive a surprisingly good, if wholly unnecessary, sequel in 2017 thanks to Dune director Denis Villeneuve, but the Blade Runner: Black Lotus anime spin-off series just premiered on Adult Swim earlier this month. Now, the man who started it all is going back to the far-off Los Angeles of… 2019?
Actually, all we know for certain is what Scott told the BBC (via Indiewire) in an interview held earlier today: “We [have already] written the pilot for Blade Runner and the [series] bible. So, we’re already presenting Blade Runner as a TV show, the first 10 hours.” Given that there’s likely to be a bidding war between networks and streaming services for a series with such a huge, built-in cult following, I think we can all rest assured this series will make it to TV screens.
So the question is, what will the show be about? The immediate answer would be more adventures of Rick Deckard, played by Harrison Ford, likely prior to the event of the first movie. It could just be a series of his other Blade Runner cases hunting down the rogue bioengineered beings called Replicants, which sounds awesome. However, as alluded to before, the futuristic events of the first movie take place in 2019, which could be awkward depending on how tied into the franchise’s continuity Scott wants to be. It could also be set in 2049, the era of Villeneuve’s sequel, and show other cases of K, assuming Ryan Gosling would be interested in doing more. But the series could take place then, or earlier, or another era entirely with all new characters—it’s not like Deckard and K were ever the only Blade Runners working in the greater Los Angeles megalopolis area, let alone the rest of the world.
Blade Runner is the second of Scott’s two greatest films to get a live-action TV series. The first is Alien, which is being overseen by Fargo and Legion’s Noah Hawley, without the director’s involvement. Suffice it to say, he is unenthusiastic about the project. There’s been no announcement for when either Alien or Blade Runner will make their way to TV, but you can currently watch Blade Runner: Black Lotus Sundays on Adult Swim.
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