Noah Hawley’s Alien TV Series in Active Pre-Production

The Alien franchise is set to be revived with a new TV series set in the world of the sci-fi experience that kicked off in 1979, with FX executive John Landgraf teasing that the series is in active preproduction and will begin shooting once Noah Hawley wraps up the new season of Fargo. At this rate, if the series heads into production this year, we can likely expect it to premiere sometime in 2024. While the series is sure to take place in a futuristic world, audiences have still been wondering exactly how the franchise will be adapted into a TV series, especially given Hawley’s approach to translating the cinematic legacy of Fargo into a long-running TV show.

At a Television Critics Association event, per writer Randee Dawn on Twitter, FX’s John Landgraf provided an “update on Alien series: Active preproduction on show is underway w/ Noah Hawley’s scripts & will go into production after season 5 of Fargo.“

In the original film, which is set in 2122, the crew of the Nostromo comes across an otherworldly egg, which hatches and unleashes a deadly creature on board. The creature evolves into the horrifying xenomorph, which sticks to the shadows as it horrifically picks off members of the crew one at a time. Subsequent films continued the terror of these monsters, along with exploring the dangers of artificial intelligence.

Hawley previously recalled how his series will seemingly bridge the gap between the real world and the ambitious elements of the film 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. “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 Alien TV  series.

Are you looking forward to the new series? Let us know in the comments or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars.