Noah Hawley’s Alien prequel series is finally beginning to take form.
A 30-second teaser for the highly anticipated FX horror series Alien: Earth centers on Xenomorph, a feral and screeching creature — and the main antagonists in the Alien film franchise — that has a ragtag group of soldiers fighting for survival. “In 2120, Mother Earth is expecting,” a voiceover says at the start of the teaser (below), followed by the screeching cries of a blood-dripping, sharp-toothed Xenomorph.
FX’s Alien: Earth will bow in summer 2025 on Hulu.
As the title suggests, the series will be set on Earth and take place near the end of the 21st century, before the event’s of Ridley Scott’s 1979 space-horror classic (Scott is an executive producer of the series via his Scott Free company).
The sci-fi horror series for Hulu led by Sydney Chandler will see a mysterious space vessel crash-landing on Earth, leaving a young woman and a group of tactical soldiers to discover what puts them face-to-face with the planet’s greatest threat. According to the synopsis, they encounter mysterious predatory life forms more terrifying than they could have ever imagined, with the new threat leaving a search crew to fight for survival.
What they choose to do with this discovery could change planet Earth as they know it, according the series producers.
Hawley said in a January interview that the series — which has taken five years to get to the screen since it was first announced — will explore some of the same themes as Scott’s 1979 Alien sci-fi horror film, including the idea of humanity being “trapped between its primordial parasitic past and its AI future, and they’re both trying to kill us.” But its story won’t be tied to those of Scott’s two Alien prequel films, 2012’s Prometheus and 2017’s Alien: Covenant.
In a recent interview with Best In Business 2024, Ridley praised Hawley when talking about some of his film franchises getting new life in television, saying the showrunner has “definitely respected the original Alien. And from that, I can’t hope for anything more other than to keep it alive. I don’t care what the platform is. I’m keen to go home and watch it. All these subjects are embalmed forever and that’s very healthy.”
Hawley, meanwhile, said he envisions Alien: Earth being a multi-season series. “It could be the next 10 years of my life, for sure,” he told THR this summer, after wrapping filming. “I couldn’t be happier with the show that we shot. If people wanted a television series based on the world of Alien, I think I’m going to give them something special.”
Alien: Earth has an international cast that includes Alex Lawther, Timothy Olyphant, Essie Davis, Samuel Blenkin, Babou Ceesay, David Rysdahl, Adrian Edmondson, Adarsh Gourav, Jonathan Ajayi, Erana James, Lily Newmark, Diem Camille and Moe Bar-El.
