During last night’s Investors Day, Disney unveiled a number of new projects that Disney and its various partners are working on for its various streaming outlets. During its presentation, FX head John Landgraf announced that they would be releasing a series based on Ridley Scott’s Alien.
Details on the series are scarce, but Landgraf says that it’ll be the first project in the fiction universe set on Earth, helmed by Fargo and Legion creator Noah Hawley, and Disney says to “expect a scary thrill ride set not too far in the future”.
The project has been rumored for a while. Back in 2019, Deadline reported that efforts had been stymied by 20th Century Fox’s Stacey Snider, who had “fended off an attempt by Hawley and FX to take the Aliens franchise and turn it into a miniseries.” In the wake of Disney’s acquisition, Snider left, presumably giving Hawley another go at the project.
Now that Disney has made the project official, Deadline says that they’re working on getting Ridley Scott to sign onto the project as an executive producer. Scott’s most recent television project was HBO Max’s Raised by Wolves, in which he served as director on the first two episodes.
There are plenty of possibilities for the series, and the fact that it’s set on Earth is an intriguing prospect. The first two Alien films seeded plenty of hints that various parties on Earth were working to bring the xenomorphs back for study and exploitation, and we’ve seen expeditions and colony efforts in Prometheus and Alien: Covenant encounter the creatures as well. It’s possible that we’ll see what happens when the Weyland-Yutani actually gets its hands on a specimen and presumably lose containment (as one does with these critters).
A return to the Alien franchise is also something that’s been expected since Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox. It’s a long-running, recognizable franchise—one that seems ripe for continuing, especially in the streaming era.
The project is in development, and Disney didn’t provide any details on a potential timeline, casting, or director for it.
