TAGGED AS: Drama, FX, Hulu, streaming, TV
It’s been more than three years since Disney announced they are developing an Alien TV series, and since the original announcement back in 2020, sporadic details about the show have trickled in. During the 2021 Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour, FX Chairman John Landgraf spoke on the project, saying: “We have to get this right, so we’re going to take whatever time it takes.”
Multiple obstacles have hit the entertainment industry over the past few years, what with the shutdowns sparked from the pandemic, the WGA strike, and subsequent SAG-AFTRA strike. Now that these hurdles have passed, new information has come to light regarding the cast, plot details, and release date for Disney’s Alien TV series.
Noah Hawley, the show-creator of FX’s Fargo and Legion is the creative force behind Disney’s Alien TV series. Joining him on the project is Ridley Scott – the original director of the 1979 movie that kicked off the iconic franchise. Scott is serving as a writer and executive producer on the series, with speculation that he’s also attached to direct multiple episodes in a similar fashion to his role on Max’s acclaimed (albeit short-lived) sci-fi series, Raised by Wolves.
(Photo by Marc Piasecki, Karwai Tang/Getty Images)
The details regarding the show’s entire cast are still a bit foggy, but some of the core talent involved in the Alien TV series have been announced. According to Deadline, Don’t Worry Darling star Sydney Chandler and Alex Lawther from Netflix’s The End of the F*cking World and Black Mirror are the series leads. Not much is known about Chandler’s role. Lawther will play a soldier named CJ.
Joining them in the program are Samuel Blenkin (Black Mirror) as a CEO named Boy Kavalier; Essie Davis (Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, The Babadook) as Dame Silvia; and Adarsh Gourav (The White Tiger, Extrapolations) as a character named Slightly.
Shadow and Bone‘s Kit Young was cast right before the production shut down due to the SAG-AFTRA strike. He will play a character named Tootles.
(Photo by 20th Century Fox Film Corp.)
“It’s not a Ripley story,” Hawley revealed to Vanity Fair in 2021. Sigourney Weaver‘s character Ellen Ripley is still seen as a mainstay of the franchise, and rightfully so, but Hawley’s story is branching out. His Alien TV series is going where no Alien story has gone before: Earth.
That is, unless you’re counting Alien vs. Predator… And we’re not.
“The alien stories are always trapped,” he continued. “Trapped in a prison, trapped in a space ship. I thought it would be interesting to open it up a little bit so that the stakes of ‘What happens if you can’t contain it?’ are more immediate.”
Instead of placing the conflict on the USS Nostromo or in the Fiorina 161 Correctional Unit, Hawley is pivoting the story focus to the competing corporations looking to maximize on artificial intelligence and the technology that may prolong human existence – or eliminate it.
(Photo by Mark Rogers/©20th Century Fox Film Corp.)
In a conversation with Esquire, Hawley compared the prequel’s core conflict as “Edison versus Westinghouse versus Tesla.”
“In the movies, we have this Weyland-Yutani Corporation, which is clearly also developing artificial intelligence. But what if there are other companies trying to look at immortality in a different way? With cyborg enhancements or transhuman downloads? Which of those technologies is going to win? It’s ultimately a classic science fiction question: does humanity deserve to survive?”
Similar to the themes explored in the movies, Hawley teased that, much like Ridley Scott’s Alien movie isn’t a monster movie, neither is this TV show. “It’s about how we’re trapped between the primordial past and the artificial intelligence of our future, and they’re both trying to kill us.”
As for when in the timeline the series takes place, John Landgraf revealed during the 2022 Winter Television Critics Association Press Tour that the Alien TV series will be “the first story that takes place in the Alien franchise.”
(Photo by ©20th Century Fox Film Corp.)
The short answer is no.
Production was set to take place from January through July of 2024, but there is no solid release date in place. In a recent interview with Variety back in mid-January of 2024, Hawley stated that the plan was to resume production “very soon.” Things are just way too early for the show to have a teaser or trailer to whet fans’ appetites.
(Photo by ©20th Century Fox Film Corp.)
In the early days after the project’s announcement, Noah Hawley and FX Chief John Landgraf both eyed 2023 as the year the series would drop. With all of the setbacks, however, it’s clear the goal posts have been pushed back a bit. Roughly a year-and-a-half, to be specific.
“The plan right now is to go back in January and be shooting in February, and looks like shoot until July or so, which puts the air date somewhere in the in the first half of ’25,” Hawley said to The Wrap. At least we’ll have Fede Alvarez’s Alien: Romulus to look forward to in the meantime.
