Hoping for Ridley Scott on Blade Runner 2099? Prime Video’s show is going without him

Here we go again, back to the neon-lit rain of Blade Runner — but this time it's without Ridley Scott steering the ship. Blade Runner 2099 is officially coming to Prime Video, carving out its little corner of the future on 25 November 2026. But for anyone hoping for Scott back in the director's chair, you're out of luck — he's nowhere near the helm on this one.

Blade Runner 2099 launches as a limited series on Prime Video on 25 November 2026.

Why No Ridley?

It's a bit of a strange one, considering Scott's fingerprints are practically burned onto the original film. He did open up recently, laying it out in unusually blunt terms for the Los Angeles Times about why he isn't more hands-on with this TV return to the franchise. Before you start blaming creative differences, he chalks it up to the labyrinth of rights from decades back:

Here's Scott on missing out on his own creation:

I can't blame my lawyers and my agents at that time, but somehow we let 'Blade Runner' go. And when you're not the author of the actual written word, you don’t have a piece.

So that's it, really: he just doesn't have the rights to call the shots. That leaves the new series to find its own path — without his grumpy genius at the controls.

The Franchise So Far

You know the drill: the original Blade Runner came out in 1982 — Harrison Ford, rain, synths, and a box office that limped to nearly $40 million worldwide. Yes, that's not much to shout about now, but as with a lot of these cult classics, the film picked up more love (and confusion) after the fact, racking up strong scores on Rotten Tomatoes: 89% from critics, 91% from the public — which is basically as close to consensus as you get with science fiction.

Skip forward 35 years, and we get Blade Runner 2049 in 2017 with Denis Villeneuve running the show that time, while Scott stuck around as an executive producer rather than director. That sequel picked up the themes, the aesthetic, and — predictably — about 300% of the running time.

What's the Deal with Blade Runner 2099?

So now, Blade Runner 2099 jumps fifty years past the last film, dropping us into a Los Angeles run by replicants — apparently, humanity lost the uprising and is now doing the scut work in its own city. Replicants call the shots, humans are out in the cold.

This time, the story follows Cora, who decides to stop running and instead becomes a Blade Runner herself — but not by choice. She's paired up with Olwen, a replicant who's only got days left, and together they're tasked with hunting down some runaway. Of course, that mission winds up being about much more than it first appears — the sort of secret that could topple what's left of the city.

• Michelle Yeoh leads the cast, joined by Hunter Schafer, Dimitri Abold, Tom Burke, Lewis Gribben, and Johnny Harris.
• Jonathan van Tulleken handles direction for the opening two episodes.