In 1979, along with Ellen Ripley and the other passengers of the Nostromo, viewers set off into deep space to meet the murderous Xenomorph. More than 30 years after the release of Ridley Scott’s Alien, FX will take the audience and the predatory creature to home grounds. The prequel series to the famous movie is set on Earth, and it’s called… Alien: Earth.
While the title may not be impressive (compared to titles like Alien Resurrection or Prometheus), and some recent franchise instalments haven’t been great, the project looks quite promising.
Noah Howley, best known as the creator of the Fargo and Legion TV shows, is the creator, showrunner and director. Ridley Scott, who directed the first Alien movie in 1979, is attached to the series as an executive producer. However, this isn’t the only project from the universe that Scott is involved in – his new film Alien: Romulus hit theatres in August 2024.
Alien: Earth (alongside Alien: Romulus) is designed to expand the universe and attract a new generation of viewers. It’s planned as a multi-season story but with a definitive ending, which is a good sign, given how many shows ended up as dragged-out and pointless.
Here is what we know about the Alien TV series so far.
When will Alien: Earth be released?
The show was announced in 2020. However, it took quite a lot of time to move forward with the production. Filming for the show began in Thailand on 19 April 2024 and is expected to wrap up in July.
Thus, the Alien series will premiere in 2025, as confirmed by FX chairman John Landgraf at the 2024 Television Critics Association winter press tour (via TV Guide). However, we don’t know what month it will be released yet.
The FX original will also be available to stream on Hulu in the US and Star and Disney+ in other countries.
Alien is currently in development at @FXNetworks. The first TV series based on the classic film series is helmed by Fargo and Legion's @noahhawley. Expect a scary thrill ride set not too far in the future here on Earth. pic.twitter.com/jZe1CRFAZD
— Disney (@Disney) December 10, 2020
What will the plot of Alien: Earth be?
Surprisingly, we won’t encounter the gut-ripping, chest-bursting Xenomorph in deep space this time. The series will be set on Earth, 30 years before the events of the first released movie from the franchise – Alien by Ridley Scott.
Given that Alien is set in 2122, the TV show will take place in 2092. The plot will focus on the infamous Weyland-Yutani Corporation, a corrupted conglomerate engaged in various ventures, including manufacturing androids and starships or organising space colonisation missions.
The company was also profoundly engaged in the search for extraterrestrial live forms. At one point, Weyland-Yutani deciphered the message sent from the Acheron moon, which appears to be a warning about dangerous species. In Alien, the corporation sent an unaware crew of Nostromo spaceship to investigate the case, hoping to use the Xenomorph as a bioweapon.
The Alien TV series will show the corporation’s beginnings as it struggles to beat its rivals in the race to create android life. How it will be connected with the Xenomorph is yet unknown.
In 2022, speaking to Esquire, Noah Hawley reveal his take on the series:
It’s set on Earth of the future. At this moment, I describe that as Edison versus Westinghouse versus Tesla. Someone’s going to monopolize electricity. We just don’t know which one it is.
In the movies, we have this Weyland-Yutani Corporation, which is clearly also developing artificial intelligence – but what if there are other companies trying to look at immortality in a different way, with cyborg enhancements or transhuman downloads? Which of those technologies is going to win? It’s ultimately a classic science fiction question: does humanity deserve to survive?
John Landgraf, FX CEO, recently said to Deadline, that the show will serve as a “big imaginative reimagining” of the Alien franchise, similar to what Hawley did in the Fargo series.
Noah has an incredible ability to both find a way of being faithful and showing fidelity to an original creation, like to the Coen brothers or to Ridley Scott’s movie and James Cameron’s follow-up Aliens, but also to bring something new that represents both an extension and reinvention of a franchise at the same time. He’s done a masterful job with Alien as he did with Fargo. There are some big surprises in store for the audience.
(…) Setting it on Earth is really interesting. We have to think forward about the future of the planet in terms of the environment, governance, technology and create and design a version of the planet in the future … Noah wants to do that in a distinctive and original way.
Ellen Ripley, as well as the other characters known from the previous instalments of the franchise, won’t be a part of the series.
Is there a trailer for Alien: Earth?
There’s no full trailer for the series, but FX released a teaser announcing Xenomorph coming to Earth.
The latest Disney+ promo also features a sneak peek from the upcoming Alien series. You can find it at 0:38.
Who is the cast of Alien: Earth?
Sydney Chandler, who you may know from Don’t Worry Darling, Pistol, and Sugar, will portray the main character in the show. According to the showrunner Noah Hawley, she will play Wendy, who is “a hybrid, a meta-human who has the brain and consciousness of a child but the body of an adult.”
Sandra Yi Sencindiver, the star of Foundation, will portray Yatani, a senior member of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation
Here is a list of other actors and actresses that will star in the show:
- Timothy Olyphant – Kirsh
- Samuel Blenkin – Boy Kavalier
- Alex Lawther – CJ
- Essie Davis – Dame Silvia
- Kit Young – Tootles
- Adarsh Gourav – Slightly
- Babou Ceesay
- Lily Newmark
- Jonathan Ayaji
- Erana James
- Diêm Camille
- Adrian Edmondson
- David Rysdahl
- Moe Bar-El
- Adrian Edmondson
