©Courtesy of Star Trek : Discovery
Michelle Yeoh will be starring in Blade Runner 2099, an Amazon Prime Video film now in production. Though details about plot and characters have not yet been revealed, sources hint that Yeoh will be playing a replicant named Olwen. The first two episodes of the sequel will be directed by Jonathan van Tulleken, who also helmed two episodes of FX’s historical drama Shogun.
Based on Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the original Blade Runner film debuted in 1982 under the direction of Ridley Scott, who is serving as one of the executive producers of the upcoming movie. An earlier sequel, Blade Runner 2049, released in 2017, was directed by Denis Villeneuve and starred Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford.
Yeoh won the best-actress Oscar for Everything Everywhere All at Once in 2023, the first Asian performer to win the award. The Malaysian-born Yeoh launched her acting career in the 1980s by appearing in Hong Kong action films in which she performed her own stunts. She came to international prominence via such movies as Crazy Rich Asians, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies. Yeoh was also seen in Memoirs of a Geisha as well as Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. She will soon star as Madame Morrible in Jon M. Chu’s two-part film adaptation of the stage musical Wicked.
Michelle Yeoh was recently awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award. In 2008, Rotten Tomatoes named her the greatest action heroine of all time, and in 2022, she appeared on Time magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people.
A release date for Blade Runner 2099 has not yet been announced. The film has already begun shooting in Prague, after the recent writers’ strike forced it to relocate there from Belfast.
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