One of the hallmarks of the Alien franchise to date has been that, regardless of the quality of these movies or when they’re set in the Alien timeline, all of them are set in space. That’s about to change with Alien: Earth, which will also be the first time this long-running sci-fi franchise has come to television.
The show, which is being produced by FX and will be available on Hulu, is intriguing for any number of reasons, and some people want to know more about what to expect from the show. Here’s everything we know about the upcoming series:
What is Alien: Earth about?
According to reporting from Deadline, Alien: Earth will be set 30 years before the original Alien movie, and will follow “the emergence of the story’s infamous Weyland-Yutani Corporation and the race between corporations to create new android life.”
The official synopsis, meanwhile, offers more detail on precisely what’s coming: “When a mysterious space vessel crash-lands on Earth, a young woman and a ragtag group of tactical soldiers make a fateful discovery that puts them face-to-face with the planet’s greatest threat.”
“As members of the crash recovery crew search for survivors among the wreckage, they encounter mysterious predatory life forms more terrifying than they could have ever imagined. With this new threat unlocked, the search crew must fight for survival and what they choose to do with this discovery could change planet Earth as they know it.”
“Alien: Earth” is set in 2120 when five corporations – Prodigy, Weyland-Yutani, Lynch, Dynamic and Threshold – wield the power of nations, and proprietary advancements in technology provide the promise of a new tomorrow.”
Who is the creator behind Alien: Earth?
Noah Hawley, who is best known for creating Fargo and Legion for FX, will be responsible for bringing Alien: Earth to the screen. In an interview with Variety, Hawley said that his story is about more than just survival, in part because it has to be old over a much longer period of time than an Alien movie.
He also discussed what it would be like to see the xenomorph on Earth for the first time: “There’s something about seeing a Xenomorph in the wilds of Earth with your own eyes. That is truly chilling to think of it moving here among us, and so I can’t tell you under what circumstances you’ll see that, but you’ll see it — and you’re going to lock your door that night,” he explained.
“What was really fun for me was to really engage with the creature, bring some of my own thoughts to the design while not touching the silhouette, because that’s sacrosanct,” Hawley continued, “but some of the elements as we know, whatever the host is, informs what the final creature is. I just wanted to play around a little bit to make it as scary as it should be.”
Who is in the cast of Alien: Earth?
Although the alien is almost always the star of an Alien story, these things also need humans. The current confirmed cast includes:
- Sydney Chandler as Wendy, a woman who has the body of an adult and consciousness of a child
- Timothy Olyphant as Kirsh, Wendy’s synth mentor and trainer
- Samuel Blenkin as Boy Kavalier, a CEO
- Sandra Yi Sencindiver as Yutani, a senior member of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation
- Alex Lawther as Hermit, a soldier
- Kit Young as Tootles
- Moe Bar-El as Rashidi, a soldier
- Lily Newmark as Nibs
- Erana James as Curly
- David Rysdahl as Arthur Sylvia
- Diêm Camille as Siberian, a solider
- Essie Davis as Dame Silvia
- Babou Ceesay as Morrow
- Adrian Edmondson as Atom Eins
- Adarsh Gourav as Slightly
- Jonathan Ajayi as Smee
- Bear Williams as Yutani Commando
- Lloyd Everitt as Hoyt
- Amir Boutrous as Rahim
- Dean Alexandrou as Bergerfeld
- Enzo Cilenti as Petrovitch
When is the release date for Alien: Earth?
The show will be available to stream starting on August 12, when Hulu will make the show’s first two episodes available. A new episode of the show will then be released weekly from there.
Is there a trailer for Alien: Earth?
There isn’t really much to go on in the only teaser that has been released, but it’s better than nothing. The teaser cleverly ties together images of Earth with the xenomorph, but doesn’t offer much in the way of actual plot details. For now, then, we’ll have to rely on the still images of the show that we’ve seen.
A separate teaser features a series of creatures in crates that were collected as samples and are apparently being brought to Earth. It should perhaps come as no surprise that one of those creatures is none other than the xenomorph himself.
