Our 1st look at 'Blade Runner 2099' shows replicants ruling future Los Angeles: 'It's our time now'

The script is flipped in Prime Video's upcoming "Blade Runner 2099" series where replicants have rebelled and seized power from human beings in a massive uprising. An arresting new trailer was unleashed during the annual San Diego Comic-Con pop culture pageant and it's an atmospheric return to the futuristic realm of Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner" universe 80 years later."The old world forever fights to come back," Olwen tells Cora in this interesting first peek at the limited series that arrives Nov. 25, 2026. "Humans want what was taken from them. But it's our time now."

Michelle Yeoh as Olwen in "Prime Video's" Blade Runner 2099" (Image credit: Prime Video)"Blade Runner 2099" stars Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh ("Everything Everywhere All At Once") as an aging replicant Blade Runner named Olwen and Hunter Schafer ("Euphoria") playing Cora, a fugitive human trying to escape pursuing Blade Runners. It's more or less a tangential sequel to director Denis Villeneuve’s "Blade Runner 2049" set in the same neon-drenched dystopian world with a team-up element between natural and artificial beings, we're also going into outer space!We first heard word of series executive producer Ridley Scott developing a "Blade Runner" TV show back in early 2022 and we're finally on the threshold of its 8-episode release this fall, which is helmed by showrunner and executive producer Silka Louisa ("Shining Girls")."Fifty years after the events of 'Blade Runner 2049,' Los Angeles has been reborn, just not by humanity," states the official synopsis. "Cora, a fugitive in a final bid to stop running, takes on one last identity: a Blade Runner. Forced to partner with Olwen, a Replicant days from dying, she hunts down a runaway hiding a truth that could collapse their fragile city."Yeoh and Schafer share cyberpunk cityscapes with Dimitri Abold ("The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes") and Lewis Gribben ("Somewhere Boy"). Guest stars include 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") and Matthew Needham ("House of the Dragon").

Hunter Schafer as Cora in Prime Video's "Blade Runner 2099" (Image credit: Prime Video)"I am so excited for people to see it," Louisa told EW last week. "There is so much legacy with 'Blade Runner.' Every person who touched the show in any way is a huge fan. Everyone was very well aware of the weight of what we were doing, and we did it with great care. And when you're taking on something like this, you're very thoughtful and deliberate about each step. That is why it has taken so long, because we wanted to make sure we got it right."We stayed very true to the noir principles of 'Blade Runner.' And there's a mystery at the heart of the show that looks both forwards and backwards in terms of mythology that fans are gonna be very excited about."Also executive produced in collaboration with David W. Zucker and Clayton Krueger of Scott Free Productions. "Blade Runner 2099" will appear on Prime Video Nov. 25, 2026.

Jeff Spry is an award-winning screenwriter and veteran freelance journalist covering TV, movies, video games, books, and comics. His work has appeared at SYFY Wire, Inverse, Collider, Bleeding Cool and elsewhere. Jeff lives in beautiful Bend, Oregon amid the ponderosa pines, classic muscle cars, a crypt of collector horror comics, and two loyal English Setters.