ALIEN 7 – THE RONIN

Most recently, we finally got some new footage from Noah Hawley‘s (“Fargo,” “Legion”) “Alien” series spinoff “Alien: Earth” from a Disney+ promotional video from earlier in the month, and a “new teaser” from this week has confirmed a summer 2025 debut on Hulu and Disney+. Sadly, this teaser (See below) doesn’t exactly include any new footage, just the previous look at a xenomorph we got over the summer.

If you weren’t already aware, the show’s cast includes Sydney Chandler, Alex Lawther, Timothy Olyphant, Essie Davis, Samuel Blenkin, Babou Ceesay, David Rysdahl, Adrian Edmondson, Adarsh Gourav, Jonathan Ajayi, Erana James, Lily Newmark, Diem Camille, and Moe Bar-El.

Olyphant is reportedly playing a new android in the show, and we’re still trying to figure out if the show is indeed going to be regarded as hard canon like “Alien: Romulus” or simply a standalone project that won’t impact past or future stories.

Illuminating the Empty Spaces of 'Alien' | by Nat Brehmer | Medium

From a timeline perspective, “Alien: Earth” takes place in 2120, which directly places it two years before the events of the original “Alien” by Ridley Scott and set much after his more recent prequels, “Prometheus” (27 years) and “Alien: Covenant” (16 years).

“Alien: Romulus” took place between “Alien” and “Aliens,” adding brand new characters and establishing that Weyland-Yutanti tinkered with the Big Chap and had a cloning program before Carter Burke doomed the colonists of Hadley’s Hope or the cloning plot of “Alien: Resurrection.” Until we get official confirmation from Hawley, there is wiggle room for them to retroactively add these new show events to the main franchise timeline in the same way without retconning anything in a major way (Neill Blomkamp’s never-made “Alien 5” would have retconned the films after “Aliens” and explored the company’s experiments with the xenomorphs including bio-suits).

In theory, xenomorphs could have overrun a city or island on Earth only to be nuked into dust and covered up by the company to hide active weapons programs using alien bio-technology. This would explain this hint of previous knowledge of the xenomorphs from Ash and Carter Burke, an established database on them from the occurences of “Alien: Earth” or previous attempts to experiment even before “Romulus.”

Check out the show’s official logline from FX/Disney:

“When a mysterious space vessel crash-lands on Earth, a young woman (Sydney Chandler) and a ragtag group of tactical soldiers make a fateful discovery that puts them face-to-face with the planet’s greatest threat in FX’s highly anticipated TV series ‘Alien: Earth’ from creator Noah Hawley.“

Elsewhere in the franchise, writer/director Fede Alvarez is said to be developing a follow-up sequel to “Alien: Romulus” (Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson are confirmed to reprise their roles) potentially with Ridley Scott (had once been developing a third David-centric prequel called “Alien: Awakening“) returning as producer via Scott Free, and the next live-action “Predator” film “Predator: Badlands” is set to hit the big screen next November. There is some hope that with the two film franchises now being set in the distant future and off-world, 20th Century Studios could eventually attempt an organic and authentic new adaptation of “Alien vs Predator.” By ignoring the previous two films and giving fans something closer to what the original comic books and video games were doing with the crossover.

Time will tell if The Colonial Marines (who haven’t officially appeared since James Cameron’s “Aliens”) will be the third splinter group to their own series or spinoff before an off-world clash between the two deadly alien species.

While “Prey” was a Hulu-exclusive film, “Alien: Romulus” was gifted a traditional theatrical release and earned an impressive $350.8 million for the studio at the worldwide box office. Making it the second highest-grossing installment. “Romulus” has proved there is still gas left in the tank despite mixed reactions to Ridley’s two prequels. We’re curious to see how “Alien: Earth” impacts things next summer and what new ideas Halwey has cooked up beyond expanding on the company trying to weaponize the xenomorph (an over-arching theme of the franchise and briefly touched upon in “Alien: Romulus” and “Alien: Resurrection” via cloning technology.

SOURCE: FX

“Alien: Romulus” is more or less a bonafide hit for both 20th Century Studios and Disney, earning a solid $350.7 million on a budget reportedly in the range of $80-100 million. Making it the second highest-grossing film in the franchise behind Ridley Scott’s “Prometheus from 2012 and has led most of us to suspect that director Fede Álvarez could come back to make the sequel. 20th Century’s Steve Asbell spoke with The Hollywood Reporter on the state of the studio’s upcoming slate of franchise installments and confirmed to the outlet that they are in active talks with the filmmaker about tackling a sequel.

Of course, there is an expectation that “Alien: Romulus” breakout stars Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson will return to reprise their roles, given the popularity of both Rain and Andy and how the ending would sort of tee up another installment. Something Asbell alludes to while musing about the potential of making a second film with Álvarez.

“We’re working on a sequel idea now,” Asbell told THR about their current plans for the feature film side of the “Alien” franchise. “We haven’t quite closed our deal with Fede [Alvarez], but we are going to, and he has an idea that we’re working on. The two survivors, Rain and Andy, played by Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson, were real highlights of the film. And so I always think of it like, “Wow, where do people want to see them go next?” We know there’s going to be aliens. We know there’s going to be great horror set pieces. But I fell in love with both of them, and I want to see what their story is.”

In that same interview, we also learned that Dan Trachtenberg directed two new “Predator” movies, including “Predator: Badlands,” which will be released on November 7, 2025. You might remember that during the promotional tour for “Alien: Romulus,” Álvarez pitched the idea of co-directing a new “Alien Vs. Predator” movie, aka “AVP 3,” with Trachtenberg.

Asbell said they’d “probably” make another “AVP” movie down the line. But also briefly teased what their approach would be with any new attempt at making a new “AVP” installment, saying, “It wouldn’t be in the way you think. That’s the thing. Not in the way that it will just be called ‘Alien vs. Predator’ or anything like the original movies. If we do this, they’ll be organically created out of these two franchises that we’ve continued with characters that we fall in love with, and those characters will combine…perhaps. But we haven’t gotten to that point. And we’re not just going to bang it out.”

The last two films were contemporary Earthbound stories that stripped away the big sci-fi elements from the comics, video games, and toy lines that made the crossover property popular in the first place. Having the alien, predator, and The Colonial Marines are thrown into an off-world setting to battle it out. We’ve already mentioned some ideas of how the studio could tackle a reboot of the “AVP” franchise and ways to potentially connect it to the new “Alien” and “Predator” movies at the same time.

“Alien: Earth,” the upcoming streaming series, will debut on Hulu/Disney+ sometime in 2025 and should give fans some meaty material before this potential “Romulus” sequel is ready for audiences.

SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

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Tag: ALIEN 7

‘Alien: Earth’ Streaming Next Summer, Series Spinoff Is Set Two Years Before Original ‘Alien’

20th Century Studios Confirms Fede Álvarez In Talks For ‘Alien: Romulus’ Sequel & Tease New Direction For “Probable” ‘Alien Vs. Predator’ Movie