- Noah Hawley’s Alien series will not be influenced by Ridley Scott’s prequels Prometheus and Alien: Covenant.
- The series will embrace the original movie’s “retro-futuristic” technology rather than the advanced concepts introduced in the prequels.
- The show is set to act as a prequel to the original Alien movie, taking place three decades before Ripley’s encounter with the Xenomorph.
Noah Hawley, the director of FX and Hulu’s highly anticipated Alien series, has revealed that the prequels Prometheus and Alien: Covenant will not play a part in the series. In an interview with KCRW’s The Business podcast, Hawley stated that he aims to return to the original movie’s mythology and its focus on “retro-futuristic technology.”
Hawley explains that he has spoken extensively with Ridley Scott about the show’s direction and that they both prefer the aesthetic of the first two films. He says, “I prefer the retro-futurism of the first two films. And so that’s the choice I’ve made — there’s no holograms. The convenience of that beautiful Apple Store technology is not available to me.”
As a prequel to the original Alien movie, the series will take place three decades before the iconic character Ripley encounters the Xenomorph. Actor David Rysdahl has praised Hawley’s unique approach to the show, stating, “Noah [Hawley], in a similar fashion to Fargo, takes the [1979 Alien] movie and asks, ‘What’s the DNA of this? What’s the world perspective? What themes are we tackling? What was the original intent of this movie? Let me see if I can play with that in a new way.’ So he’s doing a really interesting job of that on Alien, and it’s going to be a very different but very exciting view of what the original movie was.”
The Alien series, starring Sydney Chandler, Alex Lawther, Samuel Blenkin, Essie Davis, Adarsh Gourav, Kit Young, David Rysdahl, and Timothy Olyphant, is set to premiere in the first half of 2025. Meanwhile, the Alien franchise will also continue on the big screen with the release of Alien: Romulus, directed by Fede Álvarez and set for a theatrical debut on August 16, 2024.