In 1982 director Ridley Scott released Blade Runner, a science fiction film that was loosely based on the Philip K. Dick story, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.” At its initial release, the film performed poorly at the box office, but found success later in the years, eventually becoming not only a cult classic but a film that’s been herald as one of the best science fiction movies to date.
In 2017 we saw the release of the long-awaited sequel, “Blade Runner 2049.” The film was directed by Denis Villeneuve and starred Ryan Gosling along with Harrison Ford reprising his role as detective Rick Deckard. The film grossed just over $250 million in the worldwide box office and was a hit amongst film critics.
Alcon Television Group announced today that it has partnered with Adult Swim and Crunchyroll to produce and distribute a brand new Blade Runner anime series, which will be inspired by the movie Blade Runner 2049. “Blade Runner – Black Lotus” will be an animated series that will run for thirteen 30-minute episodes.
The new Blade Runner anime series will be produced by animation studio Sola Digital Arts, whose previous work includes the upcoming Ultraman anime series. All episodes of the premiere season will be directed by Shinji Aramaki (Appleseed) and Kenji Kamiyama (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex). Shinichiro Watanabe (Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo) will act as the creative producer. The series plot is being kept under wraps, but the producers have let us know that the story will take place in the year 2032, which would be 13 years after the original movie takes place, and 17 years before the events of Blade Runner 2049.
Adult Swim will have the worldwide rights (excluding Asia) to distribute the English dubbed versions of the series, which will also include the rights to air the series on its popular anime programming block “Toonami.” Crunchyroll will be given the rights to handle the series worldwide streaming for its community of 2 million subscribers and 45 million registered users. Jason DeMarco, SVP/Creative Director of Adult Swim, on-air quoted this about the upcoming partnership:
“I first saw BLADE RUNNER in 1982, at age 11. It has remained one of the defining films of my life.”
Andrew Kosove, Broderick Johnson, Laura Lancaster, Al-Francis Cuenca of Alcon will act as executive producers of the project along with Joseph Chou of Sola Digital Art. Alcon exec Ben Roberts will serve as the co-executive producer, while Mitsuhisa Ishikawa of Production IG will serve a production advisor.
Adult Swim and Crunchyroll are both divisions of WarnerMedia. Blade Runner – Black Lotus will be one of several upcoming collaborations between the two, which includes the recently released Mob Psycho 100 on Toonami.
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