Alien TV Show News & Updates: Everything We Know

A new episodic spinoff of Alien is heading to TV; here are all the updates so far. The long-running horror/sci-fi franchise Alien has thus far been relegated exclusively to the big screen, with the titular Xenomorph (and/or similar creatures) having starred in eight motion pictures to date. Beginning in 1979 with Ridley Scott’s Alien and continuing through to Scott’s prequel Alien: Covenant in 2017, the series has a long and rich history — and its next big leap will be to the small screen with Noah Hawley’s Alien tv show.

Shortly after acquiring 20th Century Fox in 2019, Disney announced that plans were underway to create a new installment in the Alien movie franchise. With the property being one of the most gruesome and R-rated IPs in the Fox catalogue, many have wondered how Disney would handle new Alien stories going forward or if any would be produced at all. Thankfully, the company had no intention of abandoning the franchise, and eventually made it known that it intended to bring the Alien mythology to TV for the first time.

The announcement came in 2020, along with news that Fargo‘s Noah Hawley will act as showrunner. While the series has yet to begin filming, there are plenty of interesting teases and details that offer hints as to what audiences can expect from the Alien TV show’s story. Here are all the Alien TV show updates thus far.

FX’s Alien TV Show Release Date

No concrete release date for the Alien TV show has been announced yet. Multiple pandemic-fueled delays, as well as the need to fit Fargo season 5 into Hawley’s schedule, have meant a shifting shooting window, but Hawley has confirmed that work on his Alien series is “going great,” albeit slowly. FX Networks’ chief John Landgraf also stated back in August of 2021 that the Alien TV show “probably will roll out in 2023.” Assuming that Alien can meet its target shooting window of spring 2023, this would mean that the Alien TV show release date could fall towards the end of 2023.

FX’s Alien TV Show Cast: Will Any Movie Characters Appear?

While few details about the characters of the new Alien show have thus far been revealed, it has already been confirmed that the series will not feature the return of franchise icon Ellen Ripley, who headlined the first four movies. There has been no mention of other familiar characters from the feature films returning, either. In all likelihood, the series (which is said to be set in the distant future) will focus on an entirely new group of characters, or perhaps the descendants of the movie characters that audiences are familiar with.

FX’s Alien TV Show Story Details

Relatively little is currently known about the story of the new Alien series, with one confirmed detail being that it will be set on Earth in the distant future, a place the Alien films rarely visit. Setting the story on future Earth appears to be Hawley’s way of refocusing what the franchise has been about thus far. Throughout all the Alien movies the Weyland-Yutani Corporation has been a consistent antagonist almost as bad as Xenomorphs. Relentlessly pursuing immortality primarily through the creation of artificial intelligence (and at the expense of real human life), the company totally dominates deep space in the Alien franchise. Hawley’s Earth-set Alien show will reportedly explore some of Weyland-Yutani’s competitors, suggesting that there are other, probably equally nefarious, means and methods being tested to unlock the technological secret to eternal life. Coupled with Hawley’s confirmation that his Alien series will feature executives engaging with Xenomorphs more than workers, the show is shaping up to be an interesting and refreshing expansion of what the films have covered so far.

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