Despite having false starts directing a fourth Star Trek film and a Doctor Doom movie, Noah Hawley‘s Alien TV series is apparently moving along at FX. In a new interview, Hawley opened up about his plan for the series, which he confirms will not feature Ripley, the fan-favorite character played by Sigourney Weaver.
“She’s one of the great characters of all time, and I think the story has been told pretty perfectly, and I don’t want to mess with it,” Hawley told Vanity Fair. Instead, the series, which he hopes to start shooting next spring, will finally bring the Xenomorphs to Earth and move the franchise outside of its usual setting.
The alien stories are always trapped… Trapped in a prison, trapped in a space ship. I thought it would be interesting to open it up a little bit so that the stakes of “What happens if you can’t contain it?” are more immediate.
However, despite pivoting the franchise towards an Earth infestation, Hawley very much plans to continue Aliens‘ theme of tackling corporate greed and inequality. “The second movie is such an ‘80s movie, but it’s still about grunts. Paul Reiser is middle management at best. So, it is the story of the people you send to do the dirty work.”
Hawley also seems intrigued to explore some of the concepts from the prequel films, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, which delved more into the topic of artificial intelligence than the original movies. “They’re about humanity trapped between our primordial, parasitic past and our artificial intelligence future — and they’re both trying to kill us,” he said. “Here you have human beings and they can’t go forward and they can’t go back. So I find that really interesting.”
(Via Vanity Fair)