Blade Runner 2099 is breaking free from the franchise's past, confirms showrunner Silka Luisa

Showrunner Silka Luisa has confirmed that Blade Runner 2099, Prime Video's upcoming series that serves as a sequel to Blade Runner (1982) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017), appears ready to take a different route rather than simply revisiting familiar territory.

Set fifty years after the Ryan Gosling-led 2017 film, the upcoming 8-episode installment takes place in a reborn Los Angeles where Replicants have risen to become the dominant species/power brokers, while humans find themselves as second-class citizens. The series follows an aging Replicant (played by Michelle Yeoh) and a fugitive human pretending to be a Blade Runner (played by Hunter Schafer), as they hunt rogue Replicants.

In an interview with SFX magazine, Luisa confirmed Blade Runner 2099 will offer a new narrative, set in the aftermath of the Replicant uprising:

"No, [Blade Runner 2049] is not directly connected to the show. What was an important early mandate was that audiences could come to the show not having seen the films, and this could stand alone."

What can you expect from Blade Runner 2099?

Now that the franchise is expanding to the small screen, Luisa has teased that Blade Runner 2099 will offer a fresh narrative that does not require you to have prior knowledge of Blade Runner or Blade Runner 2049.

Amazon Prime Video's upcoming series smartly positions itself 50 years after the events of the Ryan Gosling-led film, offering a different narrative that moves away from Officer K (Gosling) and human/replicant Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford). It's natural for seasoned Blade Runner fans to believe that the upcoming series would address the lingering mysteries from the 2017 movie. Additionally, the film's ambiguous ending leaves room for a continuing narrative. Officer K succumbed to his injuries after successfully uniting Deckard with his biological daughter, Dr. Ana Stelline. But her future as the first Replicant-born child and the impact of the Replicant evolution on the larger world remained a mystery.

Luisa confirmed that the fresh story and characters of Blade Runner 2099 ensure a total 'divorce' from the past, and the fans should not expect K or Deckard to show up in the upcoming series:

"This could be an introduction to the world of Blade Runner, and it wouldn't be dependent on you having watched 2049, [or] you having watched the first Blade Runner. In that sense, we had to divorce ourselves from the narrative."

Meet the new duo in Blade Runner 2099

While the 2017 sequel largely focuses on Officer K as he investigates his own identity, consciousness, and the possibility of Replicant birth, Blade Runner 2099 will follow the aftermath of the Replicant Uprising, where humans have become second-class citizens.

The series is centred on an unusual duo: an aging replicant, Olwen, and a fugitive human pretending to be a Blade Runner, Cora. Olwen and Cora are forced into a partnership as they hunt down a gang of rogue Replicants hiding a dangerous truth that threatens to collapse the fragile city order. The fresh and unconventional dynamic between Cora and Olwen remains one of the most interesting points in the series.

In addition to a plot exploring Replicant existential dread and missing Replicants, the upcoming series also creates an internal conflict between the characters, which is a first for the franchise. While Cora and Olwen appear to be working together, Cora's secret identity is a ticking time bomb that could easily destroy her budding partnership with Olwen and threaten their mission to track down rogue Replicants.

While Silka Luisa has confirmed that Blade Runner 2099 breaks free from the franchise's past, Ridley Scott's involvement as an EP is exciting for seasoned franchise fans. According to Collider, Paul Inglis, the supervising art director of Blade Runner 2049, returns as a production designer in the upcoming series, ensuring that the project retains the original's visual look and aesthetic, despite a new story.

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Blade Runner 2099 will premiere on Amazon Prime Video on November 25.

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