“Fargo” creator Noah Hawley reveals new details about his upcoming “Alien” series at FX while adding that it won’t be a continuation of Ripley’s story from the films…
“Fargo” series creator Noah Hawley has a lot of ideas about his upcoming “Alien” series at FX but one thing he won’t attempt to do is alter the legacy created by Sigourney Weaver through her character Ripley.
Weaver starred as Ripley in numerous films in the series but most notably “Alien” directed by Ridley Scott, the sequel “Aliens” directed by James Cameron and finally “Alien 3” from director David Fincher.
Hawley is taking a stab at the “Alien” franchise with a new series he hopes to start shooting in early 2022 but his take will be wholly original and won’t tap into Ripley or somehow attempt to carry on her story in a TV format.
“It’s not a Ripley story,” Hawley said when speaking to Vanity Fair. “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.
“It’s a story that’s set on Earth also. 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.”
Hawley also teased that on some level the previous “Alien” films have also been about the haves and the have nots as well with the executives and power brokers ordering ships to travel to wayward planets and conduct dangerous investigations that usually end with many of the crew members dead.
This time around, Hawley plans to introduce some of the one-percenters to the Xenomorphs while teasing about how much that class warfare will play a center role in his series.
“On some level it’s also a story about inequality,” Hawley explained. “You know, one of the things that I love about the first movie is how ’70s a movie it is, and how it’s really this blue collar space-trucker world in which Yaphet Kotto and Harry Dean Stanton are basically Waiting for Godot. They’re like Samuel Beckett characters, ordered to go to a place by a faceless nameless corporation. 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.
“In mine, you’re also going to see the people who are sending them. So you will see what happens when the inequality we’re struggling with now isn’t resolved. If we as a society can’t figure out how to prop each other up and spread the wealth, then what’s going to happen to us? There’s that great Sigourney Weaver line to Paul Reiser where she says, “I don’t know which species is worse. At least they don’t fuck each other over for a percentage.”
Hawley added that he’s already written at least two scripts for the “Alien” series he’s developing for FX. If production starts in early 2022, it’s not likely the “Alien” series would arrive on television until the latter part of next year or perhaps even 2023.
This will be the first television adaptation for the “Alien” series with the most recent films — “Prometheus” and “Alien: Covenant” — serving as prequels before Ripley and her ship discover the Xenomorph for the first time.
