Fans have been waiting years to see how The Walt Disney Company would be reviving various properties it acquired through its deal with 20th Century Fox, with the upcoming Alien installment helmed by Fede Álvarez adding new cast members. According to The Hollywood Reporter, David Jonsson (Industry), Archie Renaux (Shadow and Bone), Spike Fearn (The Batman), and Aileen Wu have joined the previously announced Cailee Spaeny and Isabela Merced to grapple with the deadly xenomorphs in an all-new film. The project is expected to head into production this month, which would likely result in a release sometime in 2024.
Plot details have been kept under wraps, leaving audiences to speculate about what type of adventure this new film could be. One difference that audiences will immediately realize is that the age of the cast skews younger than previous entries in the Alien franchise, which could signal the new film embracing a page from how 20th Century Studios revived the Predator series with last year’s Prey. With that film being a Hulu exclusive, fans will surely hope that the upcoming film lands in theaters as opposed to being a streaming exclusive.
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Luckily, this upcoming film is only one way in which the franchise will be expanding, as Fargo‘s Noah Hawley is also developing a TV series for the franchise.
“It’s set on Earth of the future. At this moment, I describe that as Edison versus Westinghouse versus Tesla,” Hawley explained to Esquire back in 2022 of his new series. “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?”
He added, “Alien is a fascinating story because it’s not just a monster movie; it’s about how we’re trapped between the primordial past and the artificial intelligence of our future, where both trying to kill us … As Sigourney Weaver said in that second movie, ‘I don’t know which species is worse. At least they don’t f-ck each other over for a percentage.’ Even if the show was 60% of the best horror-action on the planet, there’s still 40% where we have to ask, ‘What are we talking about it, beneath it all?’ Thematically, it has to be interesting. It’s humbling to get to play with the iconography of this world.”
Stay tuned for details on the new Alien movie.
Are you looking forward to the sequel? Let us know in the comments or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars.
