After what's proven to be some unmissable work with TV shows like Fargo and Legion, it's hardly surprising to see so much hype surrounding Noah Hawley's plans for an Alien TV series on FX. Very little has been revealed about the project, though shooting had started shortly before the Hollywood strikes closed everything down.
Cameras will now resume rolling early next year and the show, which serves as a prequel to Sir Ridley Scott's classic 1979 movie, is expected to move the action to Earth while featuring plenty of Xenomorph action.
Talking to The Hollywood Reporter (via SFFGazette.com), Hawley explained why joining the Alien franchise appealed to him more than moving forward with Star Trek 4 (another sci-fi project he was attached to for a time).
"When you find the right partner and they ask, 'Do you want to do Alien?' - which is a hugely valuable franchise to this company - it’s, 'Do you want to do your version of Alien?' It’s a very different conversation. What I found with Star Trek was I got onto the runway and then there was a managerial changeover. In retrospect, it’s not that they killed the movie."
"It’s that I got as far as I did with a wholly original idea, until someone said, 'Well, wait a minute, what are we even doing with this valuable IP? Just giving it to him to make up a story? That’s not how corporate filmmaking works.' So, if the call came in to do a big franchise film again, it would have to come with a sense of, "We want you to do your version of it.'"
Asked what the biggest challenge of making his version of Alien has been, Hawley explained that a series of different regimes - work began before 20th Century Fox was acquired by Disney - was the main hurdle. As for Alien and Prometheus helmer Sir Ridley Scott's involvement with the project, it sounds like plenty of conversations have taken place, only for those to be the extent of the filmmaker's input.
"I mean, are the Coens involved in Fargo? Let’s just say, I’ve probably had more conversations with Ridley than I’ve had with Joel and Ethan. Scott Free [Productions] is producing Alien and Ridley is making two or three movies a year is basically how that’s working."
"I mean, Ridley has been an amazing collaborator to the degree that I can pick his brain about all of his thoughts, processes, decisions and the things that he’s learned. And I try to keep him [in the loop] and send him material so that he feels respected and included. But also, he’s doing his thing."
The Alien franchise has been very hit-and-miss in recent years, so we're hoping that both this and Fede Álvarez's movie, Alien: Romulus, put it back on the right - and suitably horrifying - track.
This series is currently expected to premiere on FX in 2025. Stay tuned to SFFGazette.com for the latest updates.