The man behind such hit TV series as Legion and Fargo is now tackling a small-screen adaptation of the classic Alien franchise–but don’t expect Sigourney Weaver to pop up.
Noah Hawley in a recent interview with Vanity Fair dropped a few hints about the upcoming FX series, but stopped short of revealing too much of his plans. Perhaps because the hard work has just begun. “I’ve written the first two scripts,” Hawley said, “and we’re looking to make them next spring.”
The writer/producer/filmmaker did, though, confirm what FX had hinted at late last year. The series will be set in the future here on Earth–the first time the Alien universe has come to our planet.
“What’s next for me,” he said during the interview, “is an Alien series for FX–taking on that franchise and those amazing films by Ridley Scott and James Cameron and David Fincher. Those are great monsters movies, but they’re not just monster movies.”
The films, he added, are “about humanity trapped between our primordial, parasitic past and our artificial intelligence future. And they’re both trying to kill us. You have human beings who can’t go forward and can’t go back. I find that very interesting.”
But, he stressed, his series is “not a Ripley story. “She’s one of the great characters of all time–I think the story has been told pretty perfectly–and I don’t want to mess with it.”
This new series, Hawley explained, is on Earth as opposed to the films where the characters are “always trapped…trapped in a prison, trapped on 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.”
The original 1979 Alien–directed by Ridley Scott from a screenplay by Dan O’Bannon–follows the crew of the space tug Nostromo, who run into the biggest, meanest alien you can imagine. The first in a media franchise that includes movies, novels, comic books, video games and toys galore, Alien earned $106.3 million at the box office on an $11-million budget.
Keep reading Horror News Network for all updates on the Alien series on FX.
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