Michelle Yeoh will be the main protagonist of ‘Blade Runner 2099’Prime Video television series set in the universe of ‘blade runner‘ which will act as a sequel to both the iconic 1982 film and ‘Blade Runner 2049‘.
At the moment no details have been revealed about its plot, although it seems that the Oscar-winning protagonist of ‘Everything at once everywhere‘She will play a replicant in the twilight of her existence.
Initially filming was going to take place last summer in Belfast, but the writers’ strike that paralyzed Hollywood for much of 2023 forced the project to be postponed until 2024. Production finally began this past April in Prague, where, for example, another high-profile science fiction series such as ‘Foundation’.
Last year Jodie Comer was mentioned as a possible protagonist after having worked with Ridley Scott in ‘The last duel’with the delay in filming most likely causing Yeoh to be hired instead.
Without going any further, this delay was already the cause of Jeremy Podeswa being replaced as director of its first two episodes by Jonathan Van Tulleken, responsible for several episodes of ‘Misfits’, ‘Top Boy, Trust’, ‘The Changeling’ or more recently ‘Shogun’.
For her part, the main creative person responsible for what is announced as a miniseries will be Silka Luisa, creator and showrunner of ‘The luminous ones‘, the television adaptation of the novel by Lauren Beukes starring Elisabeth Moss that premiered on Apple TV+ in April 2022.
‘Blade Runner 2099’ is a production of Amazon MGM Studios in association with Scott Free Productions and Alcon Entertainment, responsible for the 2017 film and owner of the rights to the franchise since 2011. Its executive producers are Ridley Scott, David W. Zucker, Clayton Krueger, Andrew Kosove, Broderick Johnson, Michael Green – who wrote the 2017 film -, Ben Roberts, Cynthia Yorkin, Frank Giustra, Isa Dick Hackett, Tom Spezialy and the aforementioned Tulleken and Luisa.
The first time we heard about the project was in November 2021, when Scott himself spoke about it during an interview with the BBC. At that time the filmmaker commented that “they had already written the pilot episode and the bible”and would consist of at least a first season of ten episodes, each one hour long.
This will not be the first television expansion of the franchise inspired by ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’the short novel by Philip K. Dick published in 1968, as it will be released at the end of 2021 ‘Blade Runner: Black Lotus’a computer-animated series from Adult Swim and Crunchyroll that takes place between the two films, in 2032.
