Noah Hawley's 'Alien' TV Show Has A New Title That Confirms Its Setting

By Andrew Sanford | TV | July 18, 2024 |

By Andrew Sanford | TV | July 18, 2024 |

So many franchises have “humble” beginnings. A movie can be made that keeps things small and contained. Then, that movie can spin off into a series of films that raise the stakes and span the universe. Pitch Black was a movie about a prisoner helping a small group of people survive a deadly planet. The sequel saw that same prisoner battle an imperialistic empire. The Fast and the Furious was about small-time thieves stealing combination VHS/DVD players. Now, those characters battle international terrorist threats.

Some movie series have seen similar trajectories but don’t involve Vin Diesel. Alien is a great example. Yes, the film takes place in deep space. However, it is a contained thriller that primarily affects the crew of a small ship. The sequels add more characters and threats and tie the story into the origins of human life (at least I’m pretty sure that’s what happens in Prometheus). Now, the franchise is taking its big, wet aliens to a familiar location.

Noah Hawley, creator of the Fargo television show for FX, is bringing the Xenomorphs to TV. He’s been filming an Alien show and is nearing the finish line. “We just wrapped production, so now I’m into the long post that gets into visual effects,” Hawley explained to Variety. This is welcome news as the show was announced back in 2020.

However, Hawley is happy he’s been able to take his time. “It’s a very big show. It’s nice to have some time with it,” Hawley said. “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.”

The show is now officially titled Alien: Earth. Presumably, this means Xenomorphs will make their way to our planet for the first time. Given that this will be a prequel to the 1979 film, we may even see a change in their origins. As we already know, Xenomorphs were created when an alien baby birthed from a human injects its eggs into an ancient lifeform known as an Engineer (again, I think that’s what happened in Prometheus, which I do like).