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Blade Runner 2099: Ridley Scott on Wanting Rights to Franchise Back

With the series premiering in November, filmmaker and Blade Runner 2099 EP Ridley Scott discussed wanting the rights to the franchise back.

In Los Angeles 2099, Olwen (Michelle Yeoh), a veteran Blade Runner days from dying, partners with a mysterious new recruit, Cora (Hunter Schafer), to investigate a widening conspiracy that stretches back to the city's darkest original sins. With humanity on the ropes and replicants on the rise, Prime Video's limited series Blade Runner 2099 is set to launch on November 25th. The series is yet another project in the universe of filmmaker Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, a topic Scott recently addressed during a conversation with The Los Angeles Times regarding his plans for a sequel to Alien: Covenant.

When it comes to both "Blade Runner" and "Alien," Scott admits that he wishes he had locked down the rights to both franchises years ago. When asked about the "Alien" side of things, the filmmaker shared that he found the first season of Noah Hawley's Alien: Earth to be "pretty damn good." As for "Blade Runner," Scott is listed as an executive producer on "2099," though he gives the impression that it's not in a creative capacity. "I can't blame my lawyers and my agents at that time, but somehow we let [the rights to the] Blade Runner [franchise] go," Scott shared. "And when you're not the author of the actual written word, you don't have a piece."

Heading into SDCC, showrunner Silka Luisa offered some early insights into the series setting and timeline, as well as Yeoh and Schafer's characters. First things first, things have not gone well in the 50 years since Blade Runner 2049. There's been a replicant uprising, and mankind has been on the losing end. "There's been a replicant uprising that feels like it's been bubbling up. And between 2049 and 2099, that's happened. So the war has happened, and the humans have lost. Our worst fears imagined," Luisa explains during a profile interview with EW. "The replicants are now the power brokers of the city. And humans are the second-class citizens," the showrunner added. "The show is really imagining what comes after us, and what does it mean to be human in a world where humanity is no longer relevant?"

While building on the original and follow-up films, Luisa explained how the series also delved deeper into the novel that served as its foundation: Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. "There's a tone to his novel. There is a zaniness to it, but at the same time, he has really dark themes and circumstances. And I think the juxtaposition of this kind of bubblegum tone with these dark ideas was something I really gravitated toward," Luisa explained. "We did return to the book for a lot of the world-building. Because it's a TV show and you have so many more hours to fill, we have this great opportunity to actually build out the world, and to go to other places, and to build out parts of history and parts of the universe that I feel like fans have been really curious about and just haven't gotten to see yet. And the book was really helpful in helping us guide us where we could do that."

Luisa on Michelle Yeoh's Blade Runner, Olwen: She is hunting down a group of missing rogue replicants. She's in the final days of her life, so she knows she has only days left to live because replicants know down to the day when they're gonna die. It's certain, and it's definitive," Luisa shared. "Her story is very much taking the Roy Batty [played by Rutger Hauer] story from the first film," the showrunner continued, adding, "We're telling it from the replicant's point of view."

Luisa on How Television Benefits Telling Olwen's Story: "We have the benefit of television, where you have all of the hours that you could want to explore the nuances of this very relatable and human fear of not wanting to die. There's something about the idea that you're not winding down when you die. You're spiraling out. There's a volatility, a danger, and a desperation to it, which I think Michelle really tapped into in her performance."

Luisa on Hunter Schafer's Human, Cora: "Hunter is playing a human who is a fugitive and has spent her life running from Blade Runners, and now has to pretend to be one. In this struggle to survive and just trying to live day-to-day, she's actually lost her humanity. So she's a human who has lost her humanity. And the question for the series is: Once you've lost her humanity, can you regain it?"

Joining Yeoh and Schafer on the series are Dimitri Abold (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes), Lewis Gribben (Somewhere Boy), Katelyn Rose Downey (The Nun II), Daniel Rigby (Renegade Nell), Johnny Harris (A Gentleman in Moscow), Amy Lennox (Only Child), Sheila Atim (The Woman King), Matthew Needham (House of the Dragon), Tom Burke (The Lazarus Effect) and Maurizio Lombardi (Ripley).

Ridley Scott, showrunner/writer Silka Luisa (Shining Girls), and Alcon Entertainment co-founders Kosove & Johnson are executive-producing Blade Runner 2099 along with Michael Green (writer, Blade Runner 2049), Alcon's head of television Ben Roberts, David W. Zucker & Clayton Krueger from Scott Free, Cynthia Yorkin, Frank Giustra, Isa Dick Hackett, Tom Spezialy, and Richard Sharkey. Jonathan van Tulleken (Shōgun) directs the first two episodes and also executive-produces.

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