Sci-Fi Series ‘Blade Runner 2099’ officially began filming earlier this week in Prague, Czech Republic, after months of delay and location change. The show was supposed to begin filming at the start of 2023, but various issues keep pushing the dates. The filming dates also affected directors and actors leaving the show before it could commence.
Jonathan van Tulleken is currently the only director confirmed to helm at least two episodes of the show. Hunter Schafer is leading the series along with Michelle Yeoh. Filming is expected to last for six months wrapping up in January 2025. The series will also be shot in Barcelona, Spain, after wrapping up in Prague. Ridley Scott is also likely to direct a few episodes of the series.
As the name suggests, ‘Blade Runner 2099’ will be set 50 years after the events of the 2017 movie Blade Runner 2049. The series is reportedly set in Los Angeles 2099 where Cora played by Hunter Schafer has spent her whole life on the run, a chameleon forced to assume many identities. To ensure a stable future for her brother, she adopts one more identity and is compelled to work alongside Olwen (Michelle Yeoh), a Blade Runner nearing the end of her life. The two are drawn into a growing conspiracy that poses an existential danger to a city striving for its revival.
The cast of the series also includes Dimitri Abold and Lewis Gribben as series regulars, while Katelyn Rose Downey, Daniel Rigby, Johnny Harris, Amy Lennox, Sheila Atim, and Matthew Needham in guest roles.
Ridley Scott, director of the 1982 Blade Runner film is executive producing the series, which is a sequel to Denis Villeneuve's feature Blade Runner 2049. Silka Luisa, who has written the script and executive produced the series, will act as the showrunner. Blade Runner 2099 will be produced by Alcon Entertainment (The Expanse) in collaboration with Scott Free Productions and Amazon Studios.
Currently, Alcon Entertainment owns the rights to the Blade Runner franchise. Blade Runner: Black Lotus, a 13-episode anime series set in the same universe in the year 2032 was released in 2021 on Adult Swim. The series begins 10 years into the aftermath of the Black Out 2022, but before 2036: Nexus Dawn, and centers on a female replicant protagonist, Elle.
Michael Green, Ben Roberts, Cynthia Yorkin, David W. Zucker, Clayton Krueger, Tom Spezialy, Frank Giustra, Isa Dick Hackett, and Marina Brackenbury are also executive producers on this one-season limited series.
Released in 2017, Blade Runner 2049 was a direct sequel to the 1982 movie Blade Runner, which was set in the year 2019. It follows Ryan Gosling's K (short for his serial number, KD6-3.7), a Nexus-9 replicant who works for the LAPD as a "blade runner," an officer who hunts and "retires" (kills) renegade replicants. He deactivates Nexus-8 replicant Sapper Morton and discovers a box buried behind a tree at Morton's protein farm. The casket has the remains of a female replicant who died during a cesarean section, proving that replicants may reproduce biologically, which was previously thought to be impossible. Lt. Joshi, K's boss, is concerned that this could lead to a conflict between humans and replicants.