Apple TV’s New Cyberpunk Can Be A Bigger Sci-Fi Event Than Blade Runner

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While the new Blade Runner film is generating buzz, an upcoming cyberpunk series on Apple TV+ is poised to be an even more significant moment for science fiction fans.

Prime Video’s Blade Runner 2099 is a new miniseries continuing the story from the Blade Runner films, and it’s set to launch in 2026. Because the original Blade Runner movies—particularly the one directed by Ridley Scott—were so influential, this series has a lot of hype and is expected to be a standout sci-fi show when it arrives.

Even though Blade Runner 2099 looks promising, Apple TV+’s new series based on a classic cyberpunk novel is even more exciting. Both shows have the potential to succeed, but the Apple TV+ series could become a truly landmark science fiction event.

Neuromancer Can Become An Even Bigger Cultural Phenomenon Than Blade Runner

Created by Silka Luisa, who previously worked on Shining Girls, and starring Michelle Yeoh and Hunter Schafer, Blade Runner 2099 is generating a lot of excitement. But, given how influential the original source material, Neuromancer, has been to science fiction, this series could become a major modern sci-fi franchise if Apple TV does it justice with its adaptation.

The Apple TV series Neuromancer is greatly improved by the direct involvement of William Gibson, the author of the original novel. This close collaboration helps ensure the adaptation stays true to the source material. Unlike Blade Runner 2099, which has the weight of two successful films to live up to, Neuromancer isn’t hampered by any pre-existing live-action versions.

So far, only one of William Gibson’s novels, The Peripheral, has been adapted into a major TV series, but it was canceled after its first season. The upcoming Neuromancer series will be the second attempt to bring Gibson’s work to television—following Prime Video’s The Peripheral—making it a unique project within the science fiction landscape.

Apple TV has consistently released popular and critically praised sci-fi series like Severance, Silo, Murderbot, and Dark Matter, establishing itself as a strong platform for thought-provoking science fiction. Given this track record, the streaming service seems like a natural fit to finally bring a major adaptation of Neuromancer to life.

With all the buzz surrounding it, the upcoming Neuromancer adaptation feels more thrilling than Prime Video’s continuation of the Blade Runner story. Both projects promise to be great for the sci-fi genre, but Neuromancer has the potential to really shake things up and inspire adaptations of other cyberpunk novels.

Blade Runner’s Future Installments Could Benefit From Neuromancer’s Success

William Gibson’s Neuromancer is a landmark science fiction novel that helped inspire the cyberpunk genre, with its focus on gritty, futuristic worlds, hacking, and distrust of powerful corporations. If the upcoming Apple TV adaptation is a success, it could open the door for more adaptations of similar books, such as Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, Walter William’s Hardwired, and the rest of Gibson’s Neuromancer series – Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive.

The success of Neuromancer on Apple TV could also benefit other well-known cyberpunk series, like Blade Runner. Even though Amazon’s Blade Runner 2099 is planned as a limited series, the streaming service might decide to create more shows or movies within that universe if cyberpunk becomes a consistently popular and profitable type of science fiction.

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2025-11-29 05:28