Ridley Scott told the BBC this week that a pilot for Blade Runner has already been written, confirming plans for a TV show based on the director’s 1982 sci-fi classic. There doesn’t seem to be any details on what the story might be or whether it might feature any notable cameos, but the show should be an exciting complement to the live-action Alien series that was announced by Disney in 2020. That show will be released for FX TV, but it’s unclear where the Blade Runner series might end up.
"We've already written the pilot for Blade Runner.. and Alien has now been written for pilot"
— BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) November 22, 2021
Director Ridley Scott, says the Blade Runner and Alien TV shows are in development and they are putting together the 'bible' of both projectshttps://t.co/niPYpaHxfG #R4Today pic.twitter.com/4vTPGyZXtz
“We have already written the pilot for Blade Runner and the bible,” Scott said. “So, we’re already presenting Blade Runner as a TV show, probably the first 10 hours.”
The first rumors of a Blade Runner TV series came from Giant Freakin Robot (GFR), which published a report earlier this year claiming that one was in development. It pointed out another Blade Runner project, Black Lotus, an animated series that premiered on Crunchyroll this month on November 14.
From GFR’s original report:
[…] Blade Runner has a live-action series in development that plans to be sold to a streaming service. There is already an animated series, Blade Runner: Black Lotus, set to premiere sometime this year but it sounds like this new live-action series would be its own standalone project. We are guessing that the makers behind this new live-action series would love to see the show make its way to either Netflix or HBO Max. HBO Max might make the most sense due to Warner Bros. being the United States distributor for the last film. The animated series will also be distributed by Adult Swim, Warner Bros.’ adult animation outlet.
Ridley Scott didn’t direct Blade Runner 2049, but it saw the return of Harrison Ford’s Rick Deckard and an incredible virtual recreation of Sean Young’s Rachael character. Denis Villeneuve, who directed the sequel, told Empire last year that he was keen on revisiting the franchise.
“It’s such an inspiring place, the Blade Runner world,” Villeneuve said. “The problem [I] have is the word ‘sequel’. I think cinema needs original stories. But if you ask me if I’d like to revisit this universe in a different way, I can say yes. It would need to be a project on its own. Something disconnected from both other movies. A detective noir story set in the future… I wake up sometimes in the night dreaming about it.”
Source: BBC