Altered Carbon was one of Netflix’s biggest hits of 2018. Based on Richard Morgan’s 2002 novel, the show took viewers into a crazy and cool cyberpunk world where consciousness can be transferred to different bodies. Within this, we followed detective Takeshi Kovacs, who was played by Joel Kinnaman, and while the show was quickly renewed after the first season, fans have had to wait a while for the next run. But now, thanks to this cool new teaser, we know when it’s landing: February 27th, 2020.
The second season will continue to follow Takeshi Kovacs, though this time he’ll be inhabiting a new body and be played by the MCU’s next Captain America, Anthony Mackie. While we don’t know a huge amount about the next run (and this cryptic teaser reveals nothing), Altered Carbon creator Laeta Kalogridis has said in an interview that they want to explore the psychological and social implications of being able to change your body, explaining:
“The idea that this kind of technology creates interesting intersections between your idea of your physical self and your idea of your inner or spiritual self, or your idea of being fluid in some way, certainly the idea of reassigning your gender, becomes a whole lot easier if you don’t actually have to do it surgically. At the very least it becomes different. You are still in a body you weren’t born in.
And I think exploring the idea of being able to recreate the physical self in another different way, I mean we’ve barely scratched the surface of that. And LGBTQ, and so many issues and the ways in which we feel comfortable or uncomfortable in our physical bodies, are things that I think the show is very right to explore, but has not yet been able to do. Certainly first season. We touched on it a little bit — but not much.”
It seems that cyberpunk is coming back in a big way. Not only do we have this new season of Altered Carbon, but September will see the release of CD Projekt Red’s hotly anticipated video game Cyberpunk 2077, and The Matrix 4 will soon begin production in advance of its May 2021 premiere. And who knows, we may even get an official announcement that a movie adaptation of Neuromancer, the founding text of the genre, is on the way.
But with the Altered Carbon release date just over a month away, expect a full trailer very soon that’ll reveal a bit more about the next steps for this ultra-cool show that we can’t wait to see more of.
