We are well over a year from having to worry about Xenomorphs walking on Earth, given the current timetable for FX’s Alien TV series from Fargo‘s Noah Hawley.
Acknowledging that the series is, pun noted, a “beast” to put together (involving as it does much world-building), FX Networks chief John Landgraf shared on Friday at the Television Critics Association summer press tour that “We’re well into it,” and that he has “optimism it will roll out in 2023…. It probably will roll out in 2023.”
Hawley himself said in a July Vanity Fair interview that he was aiming to get the cameras rolling in Spring 2022 (once the glut of TV/film productions that were derailed by the pandemic eases up some).
Landgraf has offered no plot details as of yet, but previously said that the series is “set not too far into our future” and would be “the first Alien story to be set on Earth.” Hawley shed a bit more light on what he has planned, making clear, “It’s not a Ripley story” involving any iteration of Sigourney Weaver’s seminal sci-fi heroine. “She’s one of the great characters of all time,” he noted, “and I think the story has been told pretty perfectly, and I don’t want to mess with it.”
Hawley also explained that by setting the TV series on Earth, the typical confines of the movies become a frightful non-issue. “The Alien stories are always trapped… Trapped in a prison, trapped in a spaceship,” he said. “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.”
Whether the Alien series ends up airing on FX, or streaming on FX on Hulu, will be decided at a later date.
