The long-runningAlienscience fiction/horror franchise is coming to TV. As part of the December 10 news tsunami for its Investor Day, Disney revealed that Noah Hawley (Fargo, Legion) has been tapped as creator for anAlienseries on the FX network. Reportedly,Aliendirector andseries creator Ridley Scottis in negotiations to come aboard as an executive producer.
The series is billed by Disney as “a scary thrill ride set not too far in the future here on Earth.” Reportedly, this would make it the first entry in the coreAlienfranchise to take place in both a modern setting and on Earth, discountingboth of the live-actionAlien vs. Predatormovies.
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The series' tone, according to FX’s John Landgraf, is meant to split the difference between the originalAlien’s “timeless horror” and the high-intensity action of James Cameron’sAliens. Landgraf has not mentioned how he or his network plan to do that on a TV budget, unless Disney plans toback up the money truck on this one.
This marks a sudden reversal of fortune for Hawley’s plans to make anAlienTV show, which were widely said to have been shot down by Fox executives in 2019. After the Disney/Fox merger in early 2019, however, a lot of projects seem to have suddenly shaken loose from whatever was holding them back.Alienwas announced alongside a couple of other TV adaptations that had been stuck in development hell for a while, such as the long-awaited live-action series based on Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra’s hit Vertigo comicY: The Last Man. (The rumor is that a lot of the big studios are refocusing on streaming and TV, in anticipation of a pandemic-induced contraction of the domestic theater circuit. Movies as a medium aren’tdead,buttheir old revenue model might be).
TheAlienseries began in 1979 with Scott’s original hit horror film, starring Sigourney Weaver and Yaphet Kotto as space truckers who accidentally pick up a homicidal, chest-bursting stowaway. James Cameron’s follow-upAliensin 1986 established both the franchise’s hold on pop culture and a strong influence on action films thereafter, with H.R. Giger’s design for the Xenomorphs quickly becomingone of the iconic movie monstersof 20th-century film.
Like a lot of its contemporaries, however,Alienas a series has largely been running off of the cultural momentum from its first two movies (anddepending on who’s talking, the third) for almost 30 years now. Scott returned to the franchise in the 2010s with two prequels, 2012’sPrometheusand 2017’sAlien: Covenant.
Noah Hawley’sAliencurrently has no set release date or casting announcements.
