Trailer for ALIEN: EARTH released

FX has released the trailer for Alien: Earth, the first TV series based on the Aliens franchise.

The series is set in the year 2120 and opens on Neverland Research Island on Earth (this is two years before the Nostromo visits the planet LV-426 in the original movie Alien), where human-synthetic interfaces are being developed. A spacecraft has returned to Earth with five apex alien lifeforms on board, each capable of tremendous violence and destruction, crashing into Prodigy City. One of the creatures, predictably, is our favourite xenomorph, but the natures of the other three are unclear. To deal with the crisis, the Company sends in a team of synthetics to investigate further.

Alien: Earth is written and showrun by Noah Hawley, the much-feted creative force behind the TV series Fargo and Legion. It stars Sydney Chandler, Timothy Olyphant, Alex Lawther, Samuel Blenkin, Essie Davis, Adrian Edmondson and Max Rinehart, amongst many others. Ridley Scott is producing.

The series debuts on FX and Disney+ on 12 August 2025, and will run for eight episodes.

Noah Hawley confirms his ALIENS TV series will bring the xenomorph to Earth

Noah Hawley, the much-feted writer of Fargo and Legion, is working on an Aliens TV series for FX as his next project.

The writer had been working on a Star Trek movie for Paramount, but apparently Paramount shelved his idea because it had been revolving around new characters rather than established players. Shrugging, Hawley has swapped one classic SF universe for another, even finding time to pen a novel (Anthem, due in January 2022) inbetween.

He has confirmed that his Aliens project will bring the xenomorphs to Earth for the first time in the main series (they did appear on Earth in the non-canon, Aliens vs. Predator splinter timeline, and in comics and novels) and apparently the Weyland-Yutani Company is finally going to reap what it sows when the xenos run amok in their white collar heartland.

Hawley has confirmed that series regular Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) will not appear, saying he feels her story is complete, and the series will rely on brand new characters. He also confirmed that he wants to make a fifth and final season of Fargo that ties the whole series together and gives it a definitive conclusion, but that's a bit further off at the moment.

The Aliens TV series is currently planned to go into production in early 2022, probably to debut on screen in 2023.

ALIEN to get its first TV series from the showrunner of FARGO and LEGION

Fargo and Legion writer-director Noah Hawley is bringing Ridley Scott's xenomorph back to Earth.

Hawley is developing a TV series for FX which will bring the alien to Earth in the "not-too-distant future." It's unclear what this means, since the original Alien movies were set in 2122 and 2179, not too far in the future at all. Given Fox's ambivalent regard for the canonical status of Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection, and pretty much confirming that they do not consider the Alien vs. Predator films canon any more, it may be that the new film will be set after the events of Aliens and could see the return of the Sulaco survivors to Earth, possibly bringing xenos with them.

The alternative, a story bringing xenos to Earth in the much nearer future (perhaps tying in to Scott's Prometheus and Covenant films), would struggle with the continuity that no one has heard of the xenomorphs before in the original film.

The project is in development for a likely 2022 debut, with Hawley to write and direct and Ridley Scott in talks to produce. Scott is also developing a third film to connect Prometheus and Covenant to the original Alien, but this project has so far not been greenlit.

STAR TREK: PICARD proves a big hit for CBS All-Access

ViacomCBS - the newly-assimilated parent company of CBS - has confirmed that Star Trek: Picard has been a major hit for their streaming service, CBS All Access.

Building on the success of Star Trek: Discovery, which drove several million sign-ups to the service when it launched in 2017, Picard increased the sign-up rate even further.

CBS also confirmed it is continuing to develop the two new Star Trek series it has in pre-production - Section 31 and Lower Decks - and is developing two further projects. It is believed these projects include another animated series aimed at a more adult audience as well as a potential live-action TV series centred on Anson Mount's popular version of Captain Pike.

ViacomCBS is also developing a new Star Trek movie via its subsidiary Paramount Pictures. This film is believed to be the project headed by Noah Hawley and may involve an all-new cast of characters.

Star Trek: Picard runs until 27 March on CBS All Access in the United States and Amazon Prime in most overseas territories. Season 3 of Star Trek: Discovery, with a major format shift propelling it into the far future, is expected to start airing in the summer. Section 31 and a second season of Picard are expected to start shooting in the coming weeks.

Fourth STAR TREK reboot movie to be directed by FARGO creator

Noah Hawley, the creator-writer of the Fargo television series and Legion, has been brought on board to direct the fourth Star Trek reboot movie, rescuing the project from development hell.

Work on Star Trek 4 began in 2016, before Star Trek Beyond was even released. Producer J.J. Abams developed a story involving Kirk going back in time and meeting his father, both as a way of raising the emotional stakes of the film and also bringing on board Chris Hemsworth and his newfound star power from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Hemsworth's appearance in the 2009 Star Trek movie came two full years before his debut in the MCU as Thor).

However, development on Star Trek 4 stalled after Abrams was parachuted back to Lucasfilm to help rescue the next Star Wars movie (which hits cinemas next month) and Quentin Tarantino developed a pitch for a more adult-themed Star Trek film. Paramount have felt that the Abrams Trek movies have underperformed compared to their expectations but have also been reluctant to cancel them, since aside from the Mission: Impossible series they don't have a current, reliably bankable franchise.

This is also the reason why the original Star Trek 4 ran into trouble: director S.J. Clarkson was hired to take over the movie, but the studio got into a salary dispute with star Chris Pine (Kirk) after Paramount proposed a fee cut for the entire cast to help fund the movie. The rest of the cast agreed, but Pine held out, especially after Hemsworth also refused to join the project without a salary boost to his expected, post-Infinity War and Endgame levels. The project stalled, whilst CBS All Access achieved significant levels of success on television with Star Trek: Discovery (which returns for a third season next year) and has built significant hype for Star Trek: Picard, which sees Patrick Stewart return to the franchise for the first time in almost twenty years (Picard debuts on 23 January).

The new Star Trek 4 is apparently a completely different project to the one Abrams worked on, with Hawley working on a new script from scratch. Hawley's involvement also seems to have energised the cast, with Pine reportedly ready to sign back on.

Tarantino's script also remains in development, but Tarantino has rowed back on previous suggestions it could be his next film, suggesting it remains a fairly speculative project at present.

Star Trek 4 is expected to shoot in 2020 for a late 2021 or early 2022 release.