Prime Video’s Blade Runner 2099 Is Officially Seeking The “Cure For All Replicants”
Brennan Klein (he/him) is a senior news writer at Screen Rant, host of the Attack of the Queerwolf podcast, and contributor at Alternate Ending and Horror Press. He has been writing and podcasting about pop culture (especially horror movies) for over a decade at platforms including Blumhouse, Fangoria, Dread Central, The Backlot, and Arrow in the Head.
Sign in to your ScreenRant account
Blade Runner 2099 is pushing the iconic sci-fi franchise into the future.
The upcoming Blade Runner 2099, which debuts on Prime Video on November 25, is a new series that takes place 50 years after the events of Denis Villeneuve's 2017 movie Blade Runner 2049, which was itself a direct sequel to Ridley Scott's 1982 classic, Blade Runner. The series, which stars Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh opposite Hunter Schafer (Euphoria), Dimitri Abold (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes), Lewis Gribben (Somewhere Boy), and Matthew Needham (House of the Dragon), follows an aging Replicant Blade Runner named Olwen (Yeoh) who is tracking down a gang of criminal Replicants.
Cinema · A Ridley Scott Production
Ridley Scott
Filmography Trivia
👽Sci-FiIn space
⚔HistoricalEpic
🎥ThrillerTension
🏆LegacyLegend
🚀ModernVisionary
01
Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi horror masterpiece introduced audiences to one of cinema’s most terrifying creatures and launched a massive franchise. The film’s tagline was “In space, no one can hear you scream.” What is this iconic film?
✓ Correct! Alien (1979) redefined both the sci-fi and horror genres. Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley became one of cinema’s greatest heroines, and H.R. Giger’s nightmarish creature design created an icon of terror that has endured for over four decades.
✗ Even Ridley would call “Cut!” on that answer! The answer is Alien. Released in 1979, it combined claustrophobic horror with science fiction in a way never seen before. The film spawned multiple sequels, prequels, and crossovers, becoming one of the most successful franchises in movie history.
02
Ridley Scott’s 1982 neo-noir sci-fi film, initially a box office disappointment, went on to become one of the most influential films ever made. It explores the question of what it means to be human through artificial beings called replicants. What is this film?
✓ Correct! Blade Runner (1982) is now considered one of the greatest science fiction films ever made. Based on Philip K. Dick’s novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?,” it pioneered the cyberpunk aesthetic and raised profound philosophical questions about consciousness and identity.
✗ Even Ridley would call “Cut!” on that answer! The answer is Blade Runner. Despite underperforming at the box office in 1982, it became a cult classic and is now widely regarded as a masterpiece. Its rain-soaked neon cityscape and Rutger Hauer’s “tears in rain” monologue are etched into cinema history.
03
Ridley Scott directed a 2000 epic historical drama starring Russell Crowe as a Roman general betrayed by the emperor’s son and forced to fight as a gladiator. The film won five Academy Awards including Best Picture. What is this film?
✓ Correct! Gladiator (2000) revived the sword-and-sandal epic genre and earned Russell Crowe the Academy Award for Best Actor. The film’s iconic line “Are you not entertained?” and Hans Zimmer’s thunderous score cemented it as one of the greatest historical epics ever made.
✗ Even Ridley would call “Cut!” on that answer! The answer is Gladiator. Russell Crowe’s portrayal of Maximus Decimus Meridius is legendary. The film won five Oscars and single-handedly revived the historical epic genre, inspiring countless imitators in the years that followed.
04
In 1991, Ridley Scott directed a groundbreaking road thriller starring Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis as two women on the run after a tragic incident. The film became a cultural landmark for its feminist themes. What is this film?
✓ Correct! Thelma & Louise (1991) was a cultural phenomenon that challenged Hollywood conventions. Written by Callie Khouri, who won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, the film’s iconic final scene of the 1966 Thunderbird sailing over the Grand Canyon remains one of cinema’s most memorable images.
✗ Even Ridley would call “Cut!” on that answer! The answer is Thelma & Louise. This 1991 road thriller starred Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis and became a landmark of feminist cinema. It also featured a young Brad Pitt in a breakout role that helped launch his career.
05
Ridley Scott directed a 2001 war film based on the true story of a U.S. military operation in Mogadishu, Somalia in 1993, where a mission to capture a warlord went catastrophically wrong. What is this film?
✓ Correct! Black Hawk Down (2001) is a visceral, unflinching portrayal of the Battle of Mogadishu. Based on Mark Bowden’s book, the film won two Academy Awards for Best Film Editing and Best Sound. Its intense, documentary-style combat sequences set a new standard for war films.
✗ Even Ridley would call “Cut!” on that answer! The answer is Black Hawk Down. This 2001 war film depicted the harrowing 1993 Battle of Mogadishu with unflinching realism. American Sniper was directed by Clint Eastwood, while The Kingdom and Body of Lies were directed by other filmmakers.
06
In 2015, Ridley Scott directed a survival sci-fi film starring Matt Damon as an astronaut stranded on Mars who must use his ingenuity to survive until rescue arrives. The film was based on Andy Weir’s novel. What is this film?
✓ Correct! The Martian (2015) was a critical and commercial triumph, earning over $630 million worldwide. Matt Damon’s charismatic performance as botanist Mark Watney, who “sciences the **** out of” his survival on Mars, earned the film seven Oscar nominations including Best Picture.
✗ Even Ridley would call “Cut!” on that answer! The answer is The Martian. While Interstellar was directed by Christopher Nolan, Gravity by Alfonso Cuarón, and Ad Astra by James Gray, it was Ridley Scott who brought Andy Weir’s beloved novel about a stranded astronaut to spectacular life on screen.
07
Ridley Scott returned to the Alien franchise in 2012 with a prequel film that explored the origins of humanity and the mysterious Engineers who created the xenomorphs. What is the name of this prequel?
✓ Correct! Prometheus (2012) marked Ridley Scott’s return to the universe he created over three decades earlier. The film expanded the Alien mythology by exploring the Engineers, an ancient race responsible for creating human life, and introduced new questions about the origins of the deadly xenomorphs.
✗ Even Ridley would call “Cut!” on that answer! The answer is Prometheus. Alien: Covenant (2017) was actually the sequel to Prometheus. Aliens (1986) was directed by James Cameron, and Alien: Resurrection (1997) was directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Prometheus was Scott’s grand return to the franchise.
08
Ridley Scott has directed over 25 feature films across multiple decades and genres. Despite his immense influence on cinema, he has been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director multiple times but has never won. For which film did he receive his first Best Director Oscar nomination?
✓ Correct! Ridley Scott received his first Best Director Oscar nomination for Thelma & Louise (1991). He was nominated again for Gladiator (2000) and Black Hawk Down (2001), but has never won. Despite this, he received a knighthood in 2003 and remains one of cinema’s most respected and prolific directors.
✗ Even Ridley would call “Cut!” on that answer! The answer is Thelma & Louise. While many assume it was Gladiator, Scott’s first Best Director nomination actually came for the 1991 road thriller. He was subsequently nominated for Gladiator and Black Hawk Down, but the Oscar has remained elusive throughout his legendary career.
Final Cut Complete Your Director’s Chair Rating
/ 8
Are you a Ridley Scott scholar — or still watching the director’s commentary?
Prime Video unveiled a new official trailer for Blade Runner 2099 at their panel for the series at New York Comic Con, where ScreenRant was in attendance. The trailer is now available online after playing for the audience of the panel, which featured appearances from Yeoh, Schafer, Abold, Gribben, Needham, creator Silka Luisa, and executive producers Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson.
The trailer opens with Olwen speaking with a rogue Replicant who is explaining his philosophy, which is that Replicants are unhappy because they are trying to be human, something that they fundamentally are not. In his eyes, Replicants are "meant to become... gods." Amid shots of the futuristic neon cityscape that promise that the show will have an aesthetic very much in keeping with the previous installments, Olwen breaks down her mission, which is to end a slew of Replicant disappearances that has already affected 10 females and 18 males.
The editing of the trailer seems to suggest that the missing link between all these disappearances in the cyberpunk show is Hunter Schafer's Replicant character, Cora. In voiceover, Olwen approaches someone (potentially Cora) with a deal, saying that she can help them find the man who has "answers" and "knows the cure for all Replicants."
After a series of atmospheric and action-packed shots from the series, which tease that Olwen will have to choose whether she wants to identify as more human or more Replicant, Olwen confronts Cora in a tense moment where it becomes very clear that she does not know where the younger Replicant's allegiances lie.
This trailer reveals that the upcoming series is still very much working with the aesthetic and themes of the Blade Runner franchise, which has been focused on the interplay between artificiality and humanity from the very beginning. However, the idea that there is a "cure" for Replicants (which presumably means that they will be able to outlive their short life cycles) within reach in this series shows that it has the potential to push the universe of the franchise forward in a major way.
The true beginning of the franchise is the 1968 Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, upon which Ridley Scott's Blade Runner is based.
It ultimately remains to be seen how the story will play out in Blade Runner 2099, which seems to have many untold secrets and hidden layers which have yet to be revealed. However, all will become clear on November 25, as the entire season will debut on Prime Video simultaneously, which is the day before U.S. Thanksgiving and thus will allow many viewers nationwide the opportunity to use some of their time off to explore the sci-fi series.
- Release Date
- 2026 - 2026-00-00
- Network
- Prime Video
- Showrunner
- Silka Luisa
Cast
-
Hunter Schafer
Cora
-
Olwen
-
Dimitri Abold
-
Lewis Gribben
- Directors
- Jonathan van Tulleken
- Writers
- Silka Luisa, Ryan Willison, Claire Kiechel, Kirsa Rein, Tom Spezialy
- Franchise(s)
- Blade Runner
- Creator(s)
- Silka Luisa
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.