TV
Netflix’s “Castlevania” Returns This Summer
Netflix’s “Castlevania” series, a four-episode anime adaptation of Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse, was already picked up for a second season. Thankfully, we won’t have to wait long for the second season, as writer Warren Ellis tweeted out that we should expect eight more episodes this coming summer.
Executive producer Adi Shankar told us last year that a second season was already picked up for a double order: “[Not] only has season two already been greenlit,” he told Bloody Disgusting, “but the episode order has been doubled to eight episodes. So the chapter definitely hasn’t fully closed on this story.”
The series stars Graham McTavish (“Preacher”) as Dracula, Richard Armitage (“Hannibal”) as Trevor Belmont, and James Callis (“Battlestar Galactica”) as Alucard. Fred Tatasciore, Alejandra Reynos, and Emily Swallow also star.
“Castlevania” is a dark medieval fantasy following the last surviving member of the disgraced Belmont clan, trying to save Eastern Europe from extinction at the hand of Vlad Dracula Tepe himself.
The animated series is written by best-selling author and comic book icon Warren Ellis and executive produced by Ellis, Kevin Kolde, Fred Seibert, and Adi Shankar.
Blade Runner is headed to the small screen in Prime Video’s upcoming Blade Runner 2099, set 50 years after Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049, in a world where replicants have emerged on top after an uprising.
Humans are no longer in power.
At the forefront of the new series are stars Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All At Once) and Hunter Schafer (Cuckoo), and EW has shared the first images of their characters.
Yeoh stars as a replicant Blade Runner named Olwen, facing the final days of her life. It’s a twist on the Roy Batty story from the first film; here, that story will be told from the replicant’s perspective.
Opposite her is Schafer as Olwen’s partner, Cora, a human fugitive pretending to be a replicant. Olwen and Cora will be working together to investigate missing rogue replicants.
Blade Runner 2099 comes from Alcon Entertainment, Scott Free, and Amazon Studios. Silka Luisa (“Shining Girls”) is writing, showrunning, and executive producing.
Jonathan van Tulleken (“Shōgun”) will direct and executive produce the first two episodes.
Luisa tells EW that Ridley Scott’s seminal sci-fi noir acts as the series’ North Star, but it’ll forge its own identity: “We leaned into sunshine noir. You’re still very much in the Blade Runner world, but the show is about a birth. It’s about a birth of a city. It’s about a birth of a replicant era. These characters are discovering who they really are. And so the climate is hot, it’s sticky, it’s sunny. We’re on the coast a lot. We’re in Santa Monica a lot. So it’s like you’re seeing Ridley’s texture, but you’re seeing it in the sunshine noir filter.”
The showrunner adds, “The show is really imagining what comes after us, and what does it mean to be human in a world where humanity is no longer relevant?“
Dimitri Abold (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes), Lewis Gribben (Somewhere Boy), Katelyn Rose Downey (The Nun II), and Daniel Rigby (Renegade Nell) also star in the upcoming series. Johnny Harris (A Gentleman in Moscow), Amy Lennox (Only Child), Sheila Atim (The Woman King), and Matthew Needham (House of the Dragon) join as recurring guest stars.
Blade Runner 2099 is expected to premiere later this year, so stay tuned.
Credit: Clay Enos/Prime Video
Credit: Clay Enos/Prime Video
Credit: Clay Enos/Prime Video
Credit: Clay Enos/Prime Video
You must be logged in to post a comment.