Over a year ago I first reported at HN Entertainment that there was a rumbling of a potential live-action Alien series from producer Ridley Scott was in the works at Hulu and later on it was revealed that Fargo‘s Noah Hawley had attempted to pitch an Alien series then played coy about show’s current status when Deadline confronted him with sourced information that it was happening.
There was a sense after HBO Max announced that Ridley Scott’s mature sci-fi series Raised By Wolves was their their most viewed original on the streaming service, that it was only a matter of time before Disney came to their senses with a series set within the Alien universe.
During the Disney Investor Day event earlier in the week, it was officially announced that the series was moving forward at FX on Hulu with a combined effort from Ridley Scott and Noah Hawley. Nothing was revealed outside the project will be the first to be set on a near future Earth, of course, they’re ignoring the Alien vs. Predator films.
Noah had recently telegraphed in an interview with the Observer his series would focus on the human-side of the Alien universe which is just as dangerous as the xenomorphs as profits come before lives.
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!’”
Ridley Scott has suggested in various interviews that his Alien: Awakening (working title) could still happen and was in development at 20th Century Studios. A third incarnation of Alien V was recently being written on spec by franchise screenwriters/producers Walter Hill and David Giler. The pair have worked on Scott’s Alien, James Cameron’s Aliens, and David Fincher’s Alien 3.
We’re still waiting on Disney and 20th Century Studios to make announcements concerning the feature film side.
SOURCE: DISNEY
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