Alien TV series confirmed with Noah Hawley developing for FX

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

It was announced today by FX CEO John Landgraf that Noah Hawley (Fargo) will be developing an Alien TV series for FX, with Alien director Ridley Scott in advanced talks to executive produce the project. Noah Hawley will serve as creator and executive producer "Set not too far into our future, it’s the first ‘Alien’ story set on Earth," reads the official description, "and by blending both the timeless horror of the first ‘Alien’ film with the non-stop action of the second, it’s going to be a scary thrill ride that will blow people back in their seats."

Noah Hawley has been involved with this Alien project for quite some time, and had even pitched an idea for an FX mini-series that 20th Century Fox CEO Stacey Snider wound up shooting down. He also dropped a few teases at the time, but it's not known if those will be used in the new series.

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," Hawley continued. "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!'" Now that's it's confirmed, I'm more than ready to see what Noah Hawley will bring to the Alien franchise.