FX Networks head John Landgraf discussed the network’s upcoming slate at the Television Critics Association press tour, which included new details about Noah Hawley’s Alien series. Hawley (Fargo, Legion) is developing the first new Alien property since 2017’s Alien: Covenant, along with executive producer Ridley Scott, who helmed the iconic 1979 horror film.
We already know that the series will take place on Earth (a first for the franchise) and will NOT feature Sigourney Weaver’s beloved heroine Ellen Ripley, or any characters from the film series.
“It’s the first story in the Alien franchise that takes place on Earth. It takes place on our planet, near the end of this century we’re currently in — 70-odd years from now,” said Landgraf, adding “All I can tell you is Ripley won’t be a part of it, and neither will any other characters — other than the alien itself. Noah has an incredible ability to both find a way of being faithful and showing fidelity to an original creation, like to the Coen brothers [with Fargo] or to Ridley Scott’s movie and James Cameron’s follow-up Aliens, but also to bring something new that represents both an extension and reinvention of a franchise at the same time. He’s done a masterful job with Alien as he did with Fargo. There are some big surprises in store for the audience.”
Landgraf continued, “I hope they will feel like it’s faithful to the franchise they love but also a brave and original reinvention of that franchise … Setting it on Earth is really interesting. We have to think forward about the future of the planet in terms of the environment, governance, technology and create and design a version of the planet in the future … Noah wants to do that in a distinctive and original way.”
Hawley himself had previously said that he wanted to focus on the true villain of the series, the avaricious Weyland-Yutani corporation that frequently sacrifices employees to capture and profit off of the Xenomorphs. And given how much corporate corruption and unsafe working conditions dominate the news, those themes remain deeply relevant.
Hawley said of the series, “On some level it’s also a story about inequality, … You know, one of the things that I love about the first movie is how ’70s a movie it is, and how it’s really this blue collar space-trucker world in which Yaphet Kotto and Harry Dean Stanton are basically Waiting for Godot. They’re like Samuel Beckett characters, ordered to go to a place by a faceless nameless corporation. The second movie is such an ’80s movie, but it’s still about grunts. Paul Reiser is middle management at best. So, it is the story of the people you send to do the dirty work. In mine, you’re also going to see the people who are sending them.”
But before Alien starts shooting, Hawley will be filming the fifth season of Fargo this winter. Production won’t begin on Alien the series until 2023.
(via The Hollywood Reporter, image: 20th Century Fox)
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