The New York Times nails it with their lede in this story.
“Here is some news that will make fans of the 1982 science-fiction cult film “Blade Runner” shudder with either anticipation or trepidation.”
Seriously, potentially cool, potentially legacy-ruining (what isn’t these days?): Ridley Scott’s RSA Films announced that they are planning prequels to the venerable sci-fi film with a web series called, “Purefold.”
Ridley, Tony Scott and his son Luke are developing the series together with and independent studio called AG8.
Don’t worry too much about ruining something totally sacred, the filmmakers do not own the rights to Phillip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?,” the novel of which “Bladerunner” was based on, so the Times says the prequel series won’t be that closely tied to the film (though as many will surely note, the source material and the film are two pretty distinct beasts). You won’t see any of the same characters either.
Could be worse. We’ll try and not fret about it for now. 😉