FX's Alien TV series has finally wrapped production and seemingly has an obvious title now
People will hear each other scream in this one.
On top of Alien: Romulus, which arrives exclusively in theaters on August 16, Disney, 20th Century Studios, and FX have slowly but steadily worked on an ambitious Alien TV series created by Fargo's Noah Hawley. Now, after several delays and strikes-related production bumps, main photography is done, and a seemingly definitive title has been revealed.
Via Variety, the title, according to Hawley himself and FX boss John Landgraf, is Alien: Earth. Not beating around the bush with that one, ey?
"Noah is deep in work on Season 1 of 'Alien: Earth' right now. We’re in post-production, and we are talking to him and watching cuts every week. 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'. So it’s going to be a little while, but I’m also an intensely proud of that show," Landgraf explained during a lengthy interview.
FX is currently enjoying an immense streak of wins, with Shōgun going beyond its original limited series plans as a direct result of wide acclaim, and The Bear continuing to be one of the biggest shows of the moment. Moreover, What We Do in the Shadows is going into its sixth and final season, and Reservation Dogs had a healthy three-season run that also earned FX a number of awards nominations.
On Alien: Earth, Hawley also added some of his post-shoot thoughts: "We just wrapped production, so now I’m into the long post that gets into visual effects... 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." Plot details (beyond the story being set on Earth and before the events of the movies) are being kept under wraps for now, but the cast includes Sydney Chandler, Alex Lawther, Kit Young, and Tymothy Olyphant, among others.
Word on the street, as well as expectations set by the studio, has been for a while that Alien will be coming to FX on Hulu (and probably Star+ via Disney+ internationally) in 2025. However, it remains to be seen which quarter it falls on. Looking at the usual post-production schedules for larger shows such as this one, we wouldn't expect it to arrive before late spring or early summer, but we must also take into account how the Disney overlords might plan to juggle their many big-IP releases planned for next year.