Production on Amazon Prime Video’s much-anticipated and upcoming sci-fi series,Blade Runner 2099, appears to be another casualty of the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike.
The series, set to take place 50 years after the most recent sequel, 2017’sBlade Runner 2049, and 80 years after the events in 1982’soriginalBlade Runnerfilm, was initially set to start filming in Belfast Ireland’s Harbour Studios this spring. Based on Philip K. Dick’s novelDo Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?,the franchise details a futuristic world where synthetic humans, created to work on space colonies, return to earth in the pursuit of authorities. The original starred Harrison Ford as a blade runner cop tasked with capturing and eliminating the escaped replicants. The sequel starred Ryan Gosling as a replicant Blade Runner who uncovers a sinister secret.
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According to theBBC, the writer’s strike has affected theBade Runnerseries' early stages, pushing back production by as much as a year. “Northern Ireland Screen is extremely disappointed that Blade Runner 2099 is not going ahead at this time due to the ongoing writers’ strike," said Northern Ireland Screen. “The project has been prepping on the ground in Belfast for many months now. The WGA strike has been halting production all over the world and we hope a fair deal is reached soon so crew can get back to work.”
Amazon’s development of the Blade Runner series as a priority began last September, with a script written by Silka Luisa (Shining Girls), executive producing alongside Ridley Scott, who directed the original 1982 film. The series is only one of many projects impacted by the strike, already in its third week. The strike has affected some shows that streaming and box office audiences eagerly await, including Netflix’sStranger Things,HBO’sThe Last of Us, and Hulu’sThe Handmaid’s Tale.
The strike seems posed to impact sci-fi entertainment heavily, with production schedules already tending toward longer on these projects due to other factors like editing and effects. In a genre driven by the originality and skill of its writers, sci-fi seems poised to be particularly hard hit, with so much ofthe imaginative world-buildingdependent on skilled writers in the earliest stages of production and throughout the process. Even though many are adaptations of popular books and video games, sci-fi series, in particular, rely on their writers to expand and enhance the source’s scope and story.
Blade Runner 2099is scheduled to premiere on Amazon Prime Video on an unknown date.
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