Jeff Nichols says that his Alien Nation remake will be epic

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

1988's ALIEN NATION introduced the Newcomers, an alien race who landed on Earth and were forced to live among the distrustful human population. The film starred James Caan as an LA police detective who finds himself partnered with a Newcomer played by Mandy Patinkin in order to solve a homicide. The film was successful enough to spawn a TV series as well as five TV movies afterwards, and now it looks like the latest piece of the ALIEN NATION franchise will be coming from Jeff Nichols (MIDNIGHT SPECIAL), who signed on to write and direct a remake of the film for 20th Century Fox two years ago.

We haven't heard all that much about the ALIEN NATION film over the past year, but Jeff Nichols spoke with /Film recently to give an update on the film. The director said that he's almost done with the screenplay, which the studio really seems to love, and they're in the process of designing the aliens and everything else. However, given that Fox is about to be scooped up by Disney, Nichols doesn't know how that will affect the project.

I’m working with Fox on it, so it feels a little bit like you’re one of those monks doing those giant murals in sand. It might just blow away, which would be a real shame, but everybody at Fox has been so good to me about it. And they’re so positive about it, obviously I’m trying to stay in the positive zone, and hopefully knock out this last draft.

Jeff Nichols added that his take on ALIEN NATION will be "epic" as well as the "biggest canvas [he's] ever painted on," but that it will still feel 100% like a Jeff Nichols movie, which he admits will likely cause some ALIEN NATION fans to utter, "what the f**k." However, Nichols hopes that they'll accept his take on the film. "But my hope is if they … If people come to it just ready for a new story, that they’ll like it. And I put my heart and soul into it," Nichols said. "To be the project that’s supposed to be me being a sell out, it is like the least … I’m not saying that to save face or be cool. I put so much of myself into it, it takes place in Arkansas. There’s so much of me in it." I'm really not all that familiar with ALIEN NATION, but I'm hoping that Jeff Nichols' take on the franchise actually gets made, particularly if Nichols' frequent collaborator Michael Shannon takes part.