The highly anticipated Prime Video limited series Blade Runner 2099 has landed a director for its first two episodes. Deadline has exclusively reported that FX’s Shōgun’s producer and director Jonathan van Tulleken (The Changeling) will be directing the preliminary episodes. With his massive critical success with Shōgun, audiences are excited to see what he does with the new project.
Blade Runner 2099 originally had Jeremy Podeswa (The Five Senses, Fugitive Pieces) set to direct. But due to the shift that occurred in the production schedule due to the WGA strikes, he had to step away from the project. Not only were the directors altered by this timeline shift, but the entire filming process was as well. According to Deadline, the series was supposed to film last summer in Belfast, but once the Hollywood strikes hit, the work came to halt and was unlikely to begin production until spring 2024. Deadline reported that the Northern Ireland Screen stated that production on the series had “been prepping on the ground in Belfast for many months now.”
Since then, the project has moved from Belfast entirely. It was reported in October that Blade Runner 2099 will be filming in Prague in the Czech Republic. This location has also started to become a hub for sci-fi series production like the AppleTV+ series Foundation. Upon this switch, filming for the series will begin in April.
Blade Runner 2099 not only is being directed by van Tulleken but is also being produced under Alcon Entertainment and Scott Free Productions with the director of the original Blade Runner movie in 1982, Ridley Scott (Napoleon, Alien, Gladiator). Scott also will executive produce the new series as well.
Alcon, who has produced both the 1982 film, the 2017 sequel, and the recent anime adaptation of the franchise is also set to produce and finance the new project. Blade Runner 2099 is a sequel to the 2017 film Blade Runner 2049.