The Greatest Philip K. Dick Movie’s New 2026 Followup Is What Cyberpunk Needs

The greatest Philip K. Dick movie of all time is finally getting a new TV follow-up, and it seems to be exactly what the cyberpunk sci-fi subgenre needs. Although the film in question premiered nearly four decades ago, its influence on sci-fi still lingers. Owing to this, even after all these years, it is finally getting another major franchise extension, which could be a game-changer for cyberpunk.

In more ways than one, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner was an original sci-fi movie. However, even though it did not directly adapt any existing piece of sci-fi literature, it drew from Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Since getting cyberpunk right on the big and small screens is not an easy feat, the Ridley Scott movie and its 2017 sequel remain two of the best additions to the subgenre.

The movie franchise is all now set to spread its storytelling roots and extend to the small screen with Prime Video’s upcoming show, Blade Runner 2099. Although it is too soon to predict how Blade Runner 2099 will turn out, it is one of the most exciting sci-fi shows of 2026. If all goes well for the series, and it manages to come close to being as acclaimed as the movies, it could change cyberpunk sci-fi in several ways.

Blade Runner 2099 Is What Cyberpunk Needs

Stephen Vaughan / Warner Bros

Most cyberpunk TV shows and movies either end up being too bizarre with their portrayals of the future or are reduced to conventional visual elements involving everything from neon-soaked cities to cowboy hackers in trench coats. However, the Blade Runner franchise has fortunately been different.

While the visual elements alone of both Blade Runner films have been spectacular, both have found creative ways to ground their futuristic stories in deeply human themes surrounding identity in a hype-connected world.

Prime Video’s upcoming show, Blade Runner 2099, now has the perfect opportunity to riff on the existing brand value of the overarching sci-fi movie franchise and delve deeper into everything that makes it incredible. With the show, Blade Runner can finally step out of Rick Deckard’s shadow and explore what has become of the world nearly five decades after the last film.

The world was already on the brink of collapse in Blade Runner 2049, so it would be fascinating to see how the show will explore what happened fifty years later. Even when it comes to portraying the Replicants, the franchise has gradually evolved from asking if they can feel to questioning whether they have souls.

With the Prime Video show, the Blade Runner franchise can dive deeper into the exploration of the dwindling lines between humans and the synthetic. If the upcoming Blade Runner show manages to get these aspects right, it could, like its predecessors, establish that cyberpunk is a lot more than a collection of stylistic tropes.

How Philip K. Dick’s Do Andriods Dream Of Electric Sheep Inspired Blade Runner

Quite a few Philip K. Dick books and stories have been adapted for the big and small screens. For instance, A Scanner Darkly, Minority Report, Total Recall, and The Man in the High Castle, are some of the best known TV and movie adaptations of his works. While all these adaptations have done an incredible job of capturing the essence of the stories they adapt, almost none of them serve as direct, loyal takes on Philip K. Dick’s works.

That is the thing about adapting Philip K. Dick’s books. Since most of his stories lack conventional and linea storytelling tropes and are primarily driven by philosophical commentary, adapting them for the screen is next to impossible.

Owing to this, even Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner is more of a loose adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? While both Blade Runner movies are about Replicants gradually finding their humanity, the book’s core lies in the exploration of humans turning more and more into machines as they lose everything that makes them “sentient.”

Despite the movie’s deviations, though, Philip K. Dick himself approved it, even though he was known to be critical of the scripts that adapted his works. “It was my own interior world. They caught it perfectly,” he said after being invited to view its special effects (via an interview for Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone Magazine published in June 1982).

Blade Runner 2099 Begins A New Wave Of Cyberpunk Adaptations

Blade Runner is not the only Philip K. Dick adaptation in the works. Netflix, too, has picked up the author’s The World Jones Made for a TV adaptation, which is currently in production and has been titled The Future is Ours. Apart from Blade Runner, another iconic cyberpunk story is about to get a TV iteration soon. An adaptation of William Gibson’s Neuromancer is in the works for Apple TV.

Since Gibson, like Philip K. Dick, is often considered one of the most influential sci-fi authors of all time and even touted as the “father of cyberpunk,” it would be interesting to see how the first major adaptation of Neuromancer will turn out.

Like Blade Runner 2099, Neuromancer, too, seems to have immense potential and could be a part of a new cyberpunk wave the Prime Video show will seemingly trigger. If both shows perform well and even Netflix’s The World Jones Made adaptation ends up leaving its mark, studios and streaming services could pick up other ambitious cyberpunk novels like Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash and Walter Jon Williams’ Hardwired, among others.

Hopefully, the Philip K. Dick adaptations and Apple TV’s take on William Gibson’s seminal cyberpunk sci-fi novel will not disappoint.

Blade Runner 2099

Network

Prime Video

Directors

Jonathan van Tulleken

Writers

Silka Luisa