Noah Hawley (Fargo, Legion) has been working on an Alien television series for FX for awhile, and we got news today that we’ll sadly have to wait a little bit longer to see xenomorphs galivanting around Earth. Hopefully, however, we’ll see the show before it catches up with its future timeline, which takes place 70 years from now.
During today’s Television Critics Association press tour, FX head John Landgraf (via The Hollywood Reporter) gave an update on where the Alien series stands. As for timing, Landgraf said that Hawley would have to finish Season Five of Fargo before he was allowed to shoot Alien.
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“We need to shoot Fargo this winter, so we’ll be shooting Fargo before Alien though we have more scripts for Alien than Fargo,” Landgraf said, adding that Noah has already turned in five Alien scripts but only one for Fargo. While Hawley works to get his homework in on time, Landgraf gave us some additional information about the Alien show.
“Alien takes place before Ripley,” he said. “It’s the first story in the Alien franchise that takes place on Earth. It takes place on our planet, near the end of this century we’re currently in — 70-odd years from now.”
70 years from now puts us roughly at the same time Prometheus took place. And while we won’t see Ripley or any other characters we’ve seen in the movies, Landgraf gave Hawley praise about his Alien scripts, saying that the writer is bringing “something new that represents both an extension and reinvention of a franchise at the same time” and that “there are some big surprises in store for the audience.”
Landgraf didn’t shed light on what those surprises are (if he did, they wouldn’t be surprises, after all). And given that Fargo has to shoot first, it will likely still be a couple of years until we see the Alien series, surprises and all, on the small screen.
