FX’s previously announced Alien television series is finally making progress, but bad news for fans of Ridley Scott’s beloved franchise: Original film star Sigourney Weaver won’t be included in the show, Deadline reports.
FX Chief John Landgraf provided an update on the series — helmed by the network’s go-to director Noah Hawley (Fargo, Legion) — at a February 17th panel. Landgraf said that because Alien takes place “not too far in the future” on Earth, rather than in space, it wouldn’t make sense for Weaver’s Ripley to appear in the show.
“Alien takes place before Ripley,” Landgraf said. “It’s the first story that takes place in the Alien franchise on Earth. So, it takes place on our planet. Right near the end of this century we’re in — so 70-odd years from now.” The executive added that none of the other main characters from the original film would appear in the show either, “other than the alien itself.”
Stepping away from Alien’s original characters leaves a lot of room for Hawley to make something new out of a decades-old franchise, which Landgraf acknowledged. “Noah has this incredible ability, and I think you’ve seen it with Fargo, to both find a way of being faithful, showing fidelity to an original creation like a Coen brothers’ movie, or in this case, Ridley Scott’s and James Cameron’s follow-up, Aliens, but also to bring something new to the table that represents extension and reinvention of a franchise at the same time,” he said.
We’ll have to wait and see what that looks like — after Hawley shoots Fargo, of course. The anthology series was just renewed for Season 5.
