Alien TV Series Confirms Official Title

FX’s Alien TV series now has an official title – Alien: Earth. That title pretty much encapsulates what showrunner Noah Hawley (Fargo, Legion) first teased about the series, saying it would be a departure from the standard format of Alien movies. The key distinction here is Alien: Earth bringing the xenomorph threat to our home planet. Alien creator Ridley Scott baffled fans with his 2012 prequel Prometheus, which posited the idea that the xenomorphs are a bio-weapon developed by an alien race that also created life on Earth. The Alien vs. Predator movies were the only releases that brought xenomorphs to Earth – but those crossover films have largely been dismissed by fans as lackluster exploitations of both Alien and Predator. 

The main Alien films have almost all been about corporate powers trying to secure the xenomorph lifeform samples – we’ve never seen why or how that lifeform was first identified and coveted. 

Alien: Earth will serve as a prequel to the 1979 original film by Ridley Scott, but its exact story angle and connections are totally unknown at this point – if they exist at all. Hawley has made it clear that like with Fargo, his goal is to capture the sense and feeling of those original Alien (and Aliens) films, while still offering viewers something new. 

“We just wrapped production, so now I’m into the long post that gets into visual effects,” Hawley told Variety. “It’s a very big show. It’s nice to have some time with it. The first year of anything, you want to feel like you’re not up against the wall in terms of time. I’ve seen four of the eight hours of director cuts and engaged in the process of figuring out, cinematically, what it wants to be. It’s one of my favorite parts of making a show.”

FX Networks head John Landgraf added that there’s a lot of enthusiasm behind the project – so much so that it’s being fast-tracked ahead of Hawley’s other big FX series, Fargo (Season 6).

“We’re pretty bullish on Alien: Earth and we’ve told him that assuming, as we hope, Alien: Earth is a returning television series, we want him to focus on at least writing two seasons of it before returning to a possible sixth season of Fargo,” Landgraf explained. 

Alien: Earth stars Sydney Chandler, Timothy Olyphant, Alex Lawther, Essie Davis, David Rysdahl, Samuel Blenkin, Adarsh Gourav, Babou Ceesay, Jonathan Ajayi, Erana James, Lily Newmark, Diêm Camille and Adrian Edmondson.

The iron is also heating up as the Alien franchise will return to theaters in August with Alien: Romulus by director Fede Álvarez.