It seems two movies covering Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was not enough, so an entire television series is being readied by Amazon Prime for release this year.
Of course, Amazon Prime has been talking about this series since at least 2022, with the Motion Picture Association stating back then:
Blade Runner 2099 will no doubt continue these storylines, but considering it’s set a full 50 years after Villeneuve’s film, you can expect entirely new characters, plot points, and environments. Amazon has now proven itself successful working on a massively scaled genre series with the current success of its most ambitious project to date, Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Blade Runner 2099 will provide the streamer with another major opportunity to continue the story of an already hugely popular franchise, with a fan base no less fervent than those who love Lord of the Rings.
I am not so sure that Amazon Prime’s Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is a good comparison since it was not a great success. Forbes magazine called it a flop, noting that:
Just under two-thirds of all Rings Of Power viewers quit watching the show before the finale, missing out on some truly ghastly television in the process. The big question I have is: Out of all the viewers who did stick around for all eight episodes, how many were hate-watching?
It also doesn’t help that (1) Blade Runner 2049 was a flop at movie theaters and (1) the main star in this new television series, Michelle Yeoh, was part of an already discussed movie flop last year with Star Trek: Section 31. Given that Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh did well in the series Star Trek: Discovery, I blame the film creators more than the actors.
The good news is that Ridley Scott will be back at the helm on this new series. Denis Villeneuve gave us the Blade Runner 2049 film. While he was brilliant with the two Dune movies he crafted from the books, for some reason he could not make it work when expanding on another director’s work.
I am not seeing any specific premiere date, but the industry noise seems to be pretty upbeat about a 2026 release.
The odds are not in Amazon Prime’s favor, yet I am rooting as much as anyone else that this series is successful.
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