Amazon Studios is developing a live-action TV series iteration of Blade Runner, with the filmmaker who started the franchise 40 years ago, Ridley Scott, serving as executive producer. 

Narratively, Blade Runner 2099 will pick up half a century from Blade Runner 2049, the 2017 Warner Bros. sequel directed by Denis Villeneuve. Michael Green and Cynthia Yorkin, who helped write 2049, will also be in the writers' room for the new series. Also writing and executive producing is Silka Luisa, who helped pen Apple TV Plus' upcoming crime-mystery drama Shining Girls starring Elizabeth Moss. 

Alcon Entertainment is producing the series in association with Scott's Scott Free Productions and Amazon Studios.

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Both Blade Runner films enjoyed critical praise that belied tepid global box office acceptance. This description more aptly applies to Scott's 1982 noir cult classic, which was based on the Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and starred Harrison Ford as a Los Angeles cop assigned to hunt down late actor Rutger Hauer's infamous Roy Batty and other dangerous genetically engineered super humans (aka "replicants") in the year 2019. 

Villeneuve's 2017 follow-up starred Ryan Gosling as a replicant cop picking up on the replicant-hunting beat from Ford's Rick Deckard, only to find that Deckard's affair with replicant Rachael (actress Sean Young) decades earlier has created a Holy Grail of a hybrid love child. The sequel grossed $259 million worldwide, a result that has been widely painted as unsuccessful. But 2049, which won Oscars for visual effects and cinematography, certainly has its charms, too, inspiring Crunchyroll and Adult Swim to create the animated series Blade Runner: Black Lotus. 

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As for Amazon, it just spent $13 billion producing entertainment content in 2021, taking pricey swings on fantasy and sci-fi projects like Wheel of Time and The Expanse. ■

AMC has set a March 26 date for the debut of its new suspense series The Terror, the network said Friday.

The 10-episode series, from executive producer Ridley Scott, centers on the Royal Navy’s perilous voyage into unchartered territoryas the crew attempts to discover the Northwest Passage, said network officials.

The ten-episode series stars Jared Harris (The Crown, Mad Men); Tobias Menzies (Outlander); Ciarán Hinds (Game of Thrones); Paul Ready (Cuffs); Adam Nagaitis (Suffragette); Nive Nielsen (The New World); Ian Hart (Neverland); and Trystan Gravelle (Mr. Selfridge). 

The Terror is produced by Scott Free, Emjag Productions and Entertainment 360 in association with AMC Studios. The series is executive produced by Scott, David Kajganich, Soo Hugh, David W. Zucker, Alexandra Milchan, Scott Lambert and Guymon Casady. 

“The Terror captures a rare combination of fascinating history, complex and flawed characters, the inextinguishable human spirit and the horror and promise of an uncharted world,” said executive producers and co-showrunners David Kajganich and Soo Hugh in a statement. “We are looking forward to bringing viewers into this world in March.”

FX will team with producer Ridley Scott on a new drama series Taboo, the network said Tuesday.

The series, executively produced by Scott, Steven Knight and Tom Hardy, will be developed by U.K.-based BBC One and is slated to debut on BBC One in 2015 and FX in 2016, said network officials.

Hardy will star in the series, which follows an adventurer who returns to Africa in 1813 with illegal diamonds to seek vengeance after the death of his father, said the network.

“We are privileged to have landed Taboo and to work with this exceptional team led by Ridley, Tom and Steven,” said Eric Schrier, Presidents of Original Programming, FX Networks and FX Productions in a statement.  “Tom’s passion for this project, from conceiving the original idea with his father to portraying James Delaney, promises to infuse this epic story with great personal passion and credibility.”