If you’re a Ridley Scott fan, you’re in luck. On top of an upcoming Alien television series and the recently released animated Blade Runner series, Black Lotus, another project set in one of the awe-inspiring worlds brought to life by Scott is coming: a live-action Blade Runner spinoff series. In an interview with the BBC (via IndieWire), the famed sci-fi director revealed the upcoming project and shared some minor details about it — including the fact that the pilot is already written.
“We [have already] written the pilot for Blade Runner,” Scott said. “So, we’re already presenting Blade Runner as a TV show, the first 10 hours.”
However, for as forthcoming as Scott was about the state of the show, he’s keeping a pretty tight lid on the exact details. As of right now, it’s not known where exactly the upcoming series will fall on the Blade Runner timeline. While it might seem natural to assume it’s a follow-up to Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049, the most recent installment in the dystopian series, it could just as easily be a prequel. For example, Black Lotus takes place between Ridley Scott’s original 1982 Blade Runner and Villeneuve’s sequel. However, regardless of where it falls, rest assured there are people whose entire career is ensuring it’s continuity.
Over at Alcon Entertainment, the production company that owns the entire Blade Runner IP, there are two people whose sole job is making any potential Blade Runner spinoffs make sense both chronologically and thematically. While Alcon Entertainment co-founder and co-CEO Andrew Kosove declined to give their names, he said the job was ones the studio took very seriously, as they know fans have ”invested so much of themselves into the material.”
“We have two people who work for us at Alcon whose — I wouldn’t say it’s their full-time job, [but] it’s the majority of their job. [They take it] really seriously, interweaving the different stories and making sure the timelines, the canon, the character motivations are all seamless and have a logic within the canon,” Kosove said. “Our goal at Alcon, because we’re the keeper of the Blade Runner IP, and therefore we take the canon of the franchise very seriously, because the fans, of which there are so many, have invested so much of themselves in the material.”