Tag: Alien V

Posted on in Television News

Noah Hawley Comments On The Status of An ‘Alien’ Series – Plus Talk of Renewed Interest

A while back it was reported that Fargo and Legion series creator Noah Hawley had attempted to pitch 20th Century Fox to develop a series at FX set within the Alien universe which was ultimately rejected before the merger with Disney.

An Alien series wouldn’t be the first new project that was purposed.

District 9’s Neill Blomkamp had tried to finally get an Alien 5 movie (Ridley Scott and James Cameron pitched a version before AVP years ago) off the ground with Sigourney Weaver attached to star and Ridley Scott producing but that never materialized. As Scott has been talking up a third installment of his Alien prequel, a follow-up to Alien: Covenant that had been once called Alien: Awakening and more recently has been indicating that it’s in development stages. Franchise screenwriters/producers Walter Hill and David Giler seemingly inspired by Blomkamp’s concept of erasing the two sequels had written a couple of drafts for Alien V with Weaver reading an early draft of it.

It was announced that Dan Trachtenberg (10 Cloverfield Land, Black Mirror) would be directing Predator 5 aka Skulls, that according to him had been in the works for almost four years. An old synopsis for the project suggested it could be taking a period western setting with the main human character being “a female Comanche warrior”.

There had been some hints that Disney might want to circle back to Noah’s Alien series idea and Deadline asked him about it in their interview for Season 4 of Fargo. Admitting he’s since had talks about the show since the merger which sounds like new interest in making it as Deadline suggests a deal for a show is incoming.

DEADLINE: Are you still involved with the Alien reboot TV series? I understand deals are trying to be done.

HAWLEY: “I know that there’s an effort to reshuffle a lot of things post-Disney takeover and it was a conversation that I had a couple years back. And I have not in the last few weeks been having those conversations about it. But I know that like any studio that there’s a great desire to make the most of one’s library so I wouldn’t be surprised to see something like that.”

DEADLINE: But you’re involved in it?

HAWLEY: “Ya know, I have conversations from time to time but I’m not committed.”

DEADLINE: And there isn’t a hard conceit to it yet?

HAWLEY: “No, I haven’t — nothing is at that stage.”

Back in September, Noah gave some insight to Observer what he wanted to do and hinted that he would like to explore a character-driven series set in the universe that may have focused on the humans behind the Weyland-Yutani company and those underneath them. An interesting proposal given that filmmakers have really only scratched the surface of what that futuristic universe looks like.

HAWLEY: “Alien is on some level the complete opposite of Stark Trek. It’s sort of about humanity at its worst. There’s this moment in the second film when Sigourney says, ‘I don’t know which species is worse. At least they don’t screw each other over for a percentage.’ If you look at what Aliens tends to be, it’s usually a trapped story – trapped in a ship, trapped in a prison, etc. And because the Alien has this life cycle to it, where it goes from egg, to chestburster, to xenomorph, there becomes a certain routine to it.”

“I thought it would be interesting if you could expand. If you’re going to make something for television, you’ve got 10 hours let’s say. Even if you have a lot of action, like two hours, then you’re still going to have eight hours left. So what is the show about? That’s what I tried to talk to them about. As I did with Legion, the exercise is: Let’s take the superhero stuff out of the show and see if it’s still a great show. What’s the show about? Let’s take the Alien out of the show. What’s the show about? What are the themes, who are the characters and what is the human drama? Then we drop the aliens back in and we go, ‘This is great. Not only is there great human drama, but there’s aliens!’”

We had heard a while back there had been some interest in Ridley Scott getting involved with a Hulu series, the streamer now has a strong relationship with FX’s programming post-merger and would be a perfect home for an Alien series if/when it come together. If there were to be any Alien series Scott is most likely landing an automatic executive producer credit given his current status on the franchise and previous involvement with Alien 5 as a producer.

It’s also worth noting that Ridley Scott’s sci-fi series Raised By Wolves (formerly at TNT) had been touted by HBO Max as their most successful original series and that could help influence folks at Disney, 20th Century Studios, FX, and Hulu to give Noah’s series a second look as it sounds like they might already have.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in Film News

Katherine Waterston Hopeful Daniels Is Still Alive For Another ‘Alien’ Film From Ridley Scott

While speaking with The Playlist, Alien: Covenant actress Katherine Waterston reaffirmed a desire to reprise the role of Daniels for another Alien prequel film, if her character is still alive.

PLAYLIST: Would you make another Alien movie?

WATERSTON: “In a heartbeat. I loved working with Ridley and I loved playing that part. I hope we can! I would love it! I hope she’s still alive!”

Katherine isn’t speaking out of school questioning if Daniels is still alive as they killed Noomi Rapace’s Elizabeth Shaw off-screen when she was supposed to return in a bigger role originally in earlier incarnations of Alien: Covenant.

However, Ridley Scott spoke with Forbes recently where he suggested that if he makes another Alien film it might deviate from the last two installments and might not even connect to them.

SCOTT: “That’s in process. We went down a route to try and reinvent the wheel with Prometheus and Covenant. Whether or not we go directly back to that is doubtful because Prometheus woke it up very well. But you know, you’re asking fundamental questions like, ‘Has the Alien himself, the facehugger, the chestburster, have they all run out of steam? Do you have to rethink the whole bloody thing and simply use the word to franchise?’ That’s always the fundamental question.”

ALIEN: COVENANT – Bound for a remote planet on the far side of the galaxy, members (Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup) of the colony ship Covenant discover what they think to be an uncharted paradise. While there, they meet David (Michael Fassbender), the synthetic survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition. The mysterious world soon turns dark and dangerous when a hostile alien life-form forces the crew into a deadly fight for survival.

SOURCE: THE PLAYLIST

Posted on in Television News

Noah Hawley Suggests His Unmade ‘Alien’ Series At FX Would Have Been Character-Driven and Further Explore The Universe

Last year it was revealed that Legion and Fargo showrunner/creator Noah Hawley had attempted to pitch FX and 20th Century Fox a miniseries that takes place within the Alien universe before the merger with Disney. Unfortunately the executives didn’t bite and it never came together.

We now have some idea of what it would have looked like thanks to some interesting new comments from Noah. While speaking with the Observer, Noah seemingly was interested in exploring the themes and characters within the universe rather than simply the action and xenomorphs. 

HAWLEY: “Alien is on some level the complete opposite of Stark Trek. It’s sort of about humanity at its worst. There’s this moment in the second film when Sigourney says, ‘I don’t know which species is worse. At least they don’t screw each other over for a percentage.’ If you look at what Aliens tends to be, it’s usually a trapped story – trapped in a ship, trapped in a prison, etc. And because the Alien has this life cycle to it, where it goes from egg, to chestburster, to xenomorph, there becomes a certain routine to it.”

“I thought it would be interesting if you could expand. If you’re going to make something for television, you’ve got 10 hours let’s say. Even if you have a lot of action, like two hours, then you’re still going to have eight hours left. So what is the show about? That’s what I tried to talk to them about. As I did with Legion, the exercise is: Let’s take the superhero stuff out of the show and see if it’s still a great show. What’s the show about? Let’s take the Alien out of the show. What’s the show about? What are the themes, who are the characters and what is the human drama? Then we drop the aliens back in and we go, ‘This is great. Not only is there great human drama, but there’s aliens!’”

As it stands there doesn’t seem to be any official movement on the Alien franchise. Ridley Scott keeps talking up a third Alien prequel that may distance itself from the last two installments and there has been a new Alien 5 aka Alien V script making the rounds from Walter Hill and David Giler. The pair of screenwriters previously worked on the first three Alien films.

I would have loved to have seen something new within the Alien universe and a series allows creative people a little more wiggle-room as you’re not completely focused on box office returns. Maybe down the line, Disney will revisit the idea of a series and push for it to land at Hulu/FX allowing to keep its mature tone.

SOURCE: OBSERVER 

Posted on in Film News

Walter Hill Reveals ‘Alien V’ Script Co-Written With David Giler Is From March 2020 – Teases Retconning ‘Alien 3-4’?

Last week, it was revealed by Alien franchise actress Sigourney Weaver that producer Walter Hill penned a draft for Alien 5 over a year ago. Weaver didn’t sound terribly enthusiastic about reprising the Ripley role.

Hill has now reached out to SyFy Wire and has added some new information including images of the script titled “Alien V” is dated March 13th, 2020 and is co-written by fellow franchise producer/screenwriter David Giler. The pair did rewrites on the original Alien script, worked on Aliens with James Cameron, and were behind the final version of Alien 3.

HILL: “Sigourney, as she has from the very beginning, is being too modest about her proven ability to pull off the idea — which is to tell a story that scares the pants off your date, kicks the ass of a new Xenomorph, and conducts a meditation on both the universe of the Alien franchise and the destiny of the character of Lt. Ellen Ripley.”

This would establish the pair have been more recently working on the project since Neill Blomkamp exited to purse other films and might be something they’ve been doing on their own, rather than something guided by Disney or 20th Century Studios.

Meaning that Alien V hasn’t been greenlit.

“In space nobody can hear you dream” is mentioned on the tagline, which might suggest their version could attempt to retcon both Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection via cryosleep. Blomkamp wanted to have Alien 5 a direct sequel to Aliens with bringing back characters like Hicks, Newt, and even Bishop.

I sort of get vibes from when Ridley Scott’s production company Scott Free was originally tasked to develop the Alien: Origins script with Jon Spaihts before it became the version of Prometheus we know today.

SOURCE: SYFY WIRE