It’s suddenly an incredibly fruitful time to be an Alien fan. Hot on the heels of last year’s Alien: Romulus, both Alien: Earth and Predator: Badlands release this year, with Alien: Earth hitting screens in a matter of days. Despite this sudden influx of Xeno-connected storytelling, the projects are all on “separate tracks” according to Alien: Earth creator Noah Hawley and producer David Zucker. But Hawley, for one, hopes his new show’s earth-bound backstory becomes standard for the series going forward.
Speaking to GamesRadar+ in London, Hawley notes that while “the film division and the TV division [at Disney] are existing in their own worlds,” he’s had conversations with Romulus director Fede Alvarez and Badlands director Dan Trachtenberg about their unconnected Alien universe.
“We talk to the degree that we're trying to avoid duplication of story or inadvertent mimicry of something I might do, or that Dan might do, or Fede [Alvarez],” Hawley says. “But in general, they're not all coordinated. What I've suggested, since there's a surprising paucity of mythology in the seven films, other than that there's a company called Weyland-Yutani... I've said, ‘Well, you know, so if this show is a prequel to the movies, and I've made some choices about how humanity is organized: it might be helpful if you adopt those [choices] should the issue come up in your films,’ Right? But otherwise, we're not really coordinating with each other.”
In Alien: Earth, the planet is governed by five mega-corporations: Weyland-Yutani, Lynch, Dynamic, Threshold and Prodigy. The latter company, led by Samuel Blenkin’s young genius Boy Kavalier, is behind a new hybrid technology that could change the trajectory of humanity – until the perfect organism crash-lands in Prodigy-owned New Siam.
According to Alien: Earth producer David Zucker of Scott Free, the possibility of TV projects like Alien: Earth crossing over with films like Alien: Romulus “was just simply unapproachable for the longest time. I mean, feature and television, particularly for these valuable film franchises, was just not a conversation you were even permitted to have,” says Zucker. “It’s interesting because we are still maintaining separate tracks, so there’s an awareness. But probably to the benefit of both endeavours, Noah’s been given his independence to really find the story he wants to tell, the way he wants to tell it.”
Alien: Earth is set two years before the events of Alien, and Hawley has suggested that the show will swerve the Xeno-history established in controversial prequels Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. This means the purpose of Alien’s Space Jockey remains unanswered in Alien: Earth, but Hawley doesn’t rule out the possibility that Alien’s greatest mystery could play into future seasons. “[The Space Jockey is] not really involved in our story to date, you know,” Hawley says. “Maybe I'll think about it in the future.”
Alien: Earth’s two-episode premiere streams on Hulu in the US on August 12, and on Disney Plus in the UK on August 13, with subsequent episodes streaming weekly. Before taking an express elevator to hell, read our Alien: Earth review and our breakdown of how to watch the Alien movies in order.
