Summary
- The Alien TV show will break away from the formula established by the franchise’s theatrical films, according to creator Noah Hawley.
- The series will not solely focus on the characters’ survival, as that would become unsustainable for a TV show.
- Hawley aims to innovate the structure of the show by deviating from the usual trapped-in-a-spaceship or prison scenario and the typical life cycle of the alien creature.
Alien TV show creator Noah Hawley explains how the series will break the horror franchise’s formula. It all began back in 1979 with Ridley Scott’s original vision of outer space survival-horror, starring Sigourney Weaver as the iconic Ripley. James Cameron later put his own spin on what Scott had started, adding more aliens along with heavily-armed space marines, resulting in another blockbuster (and another memorable Weaver performance). Subsequent films in this long-running horror franchise, including 2017’s under-performing Alien: Covenant, have been met with mixed reactions, and now the series will head to the small screen for an FX show created by Fargo mastermind Hawley.
The FX Alien TV show may still be a long way off, but creator Hawley is nevertheless opening up about what he has in store for audiences, explaining recently how and why the series will break away from the formula established by the franchise’s many theatrical films. As Hawley told /Film, the classic survival-horror approach simply won’t work for an ongoing series, forcing him to innovate when it comes to structure. Check out his remarks below:
Look, a two-hour movie, you can set it up and then it’s just about, ‘Are they going to survive?’ But if you’re making a series, ‘Are they going to survive?’, you can’t sustain it. Even if you have 60% of the best action-horror on television, you still have 40% of ‘What are we talking about?’ I had some conversations early on with Peter Rice, who used to run all of television at Fox and then the first couple of years at Disney, where it was like, ‘The thing with Alien is, it’s always trapped in a spaceship, trapped in a prison. What if it wasn’t that?’ And then it always mimics the life cycle of the creature, right? Which is egg, slow, Facehugger, starts to get faster — you know what I mean? And of course, that’s great for a horror movie to build that way. So I found a way to kind of innovate around that structure and play with it.
Hawley Will Change Alien By Going To Earth
The original Alien movie took place almost entirely on the spaceship Nostromo, setting a pattern for the rest of the series, which has rarely visited planet Earth. Hawley however means to change all that, by setting his series on humanity’s home planet. Little else is known when it comes to story details, but it’s been teased that the show will in some ways revolve around the competition between the notorious Weyland-Yutani Corporation and other shady future companies involved in developing disturbing technologies.
It’s of course a given that Xenomorphs will play a role on Hawley’s Alien show, but how big a role they’ll play is yet to be seen. Going by the creator’s new remarks, it seems that if/when the classic aliens do make their appearance, they won’t simply be stalking victims through spaceships or doing battle with space marines as on the big screen. Audiences can expect a genuine deep dive into the universe of Alien, with a lot more background on future Earth, and a lot less classic survival-horror, when the show finally arrives. No premiere date has yet been announced for the series.
Source: /Film