If Alien: Romulus reinvigorated a love for Ridley Scott’s famous space horror series, you thankfully won’t have to wait too much longer for the next hit of dopamine. FX is launching an Alien TV series in “early 2025”, entitled Alien: Earth. Set to be the franchise’s first television instalment, the upcoming production is still in early development and details are scant thus far. That being said, we do have a full cast, a place in the timeline, a teaser trailer, and some hints to help guide us as we figure out what the show will do with the infamously deadly Xenomorph as it takes its first foray onto our own planet.
‘Alien: Earth’ Teaser
Released in early September 2024, the first Alien: Earth offers a glimpse at the upcoming series. Opening with a shot of the earth as it rotates, the image suddenly slips out to reveal it is a reflection bouncing off the Alien’s face. Naturally, a series of quick cuts proceed, showing the Alien in full voice. The 16-second teaser isn’t exactly revealing and provides little top insight into the actual production, however, it does indicate that FX is serious about making this series work.
Everything We Know About ‘Alien: Earth’
According to FX and interviews with key personnel, Alien: Earth will likely depict two key storylines. The first will follow a rag-tag group of tactical soldiers led by a young woman (played by Sydney Chandler) after a mysterious spaceship crash-lands on Earth. This group makes a “fateful discovery”, and will most likely come across the Alien lifeform (whatever that form will take).
This young woman, Wendy, is a hybrid ‘meta-human’. We don’t know exactly what that means yet, but she’s apparently the combination of an adult body with a child’s consciousness and will be protected by android Kirsh, played by Timothy Olyphant.
The other storyline will depict the beginnings of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation which, if you’ve been following the series, is the mega-corporation that has put a lot of the films’ events into motion. The show will deal with the technological race to create the kinds of androids shown throughout the series, and will explore the line between human and machine more directly.
It’s very likely that the two major players in this race will be the Weyland Corporation, and the Yutani Corporation. According to the series’ official canon, the pair merged in 2099 to become the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. From there, it got very interested in alien biology, which has led to a lot of bad things happening.
In saying that, FX boss John Landgraf told Deadline that the show would be an “imaginative reimagining”, so official canon might not matter too much.
“It was really fun to watch take on the ‘Alien’ franchise in the way I watched him take on ‘Fargo’, to try to figure out how to deconstruct where the magic of it comes from and what were the key ingredients and how he can deliver those ingredients in a different way without just repeating things that have been done before,” Landgraf said.
Landgraf also said they’re expecting the show to go for at least two seasons, though more are definitely on the cards.
It’s worth noting that Ridley Scott, who directed the first Alien and returned to make Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, had a third movie in that prequel series in mind that would have focused more on the continued growth of David as an AI, and further bridge the gap between Covenant and the original movie.
And wouldn’t you know it, Scott is acting as an executive producer on the show. With any luck we’ll get a bit of that lost story in Alien: Earth, since Scott’s Covenant follow-up has been on ice for some time.
All Confirmed Cast Members
Beyond the speculation, we do already have a good idea of who you’ll be seeing on screen in early 2025.
- Sydney Chandler as Wendy
- Alex Lawther as CJ
- Timothy Olyphant as Kirsh
- Essie Davis as Dame Silvia
- Kit Young as Tootles
- Samuel Blenkin as Boy Kavalier
- Adarsh Gourav as Slightly
- Dean Alexandrou as Bergerfeld
- Amir Boutrous as Rahim
- Lloyd Everitt as Hoyt
- Bear Williams
- Moe Bar-El
- Sandra Yi Sencindiver
- David Rysdahl
- Erana James
- Babou Ceesay
- Diêm Camille
Where and When does ‘Alien: Earth’ Take Place?
This might be a surprise, but Alien: Earth is going to take place on Earth.
This is actually a bigger deal than you’d think, as despite the original film launching in 1979 (yep, 45 years ago), we actually haven’t seen a canonical view of our big blue marble in the series. No, the Alien vs. Predator movies don’t count.
Also, though the series has jumped around quite a bit in terms of the timeline, it actually only occurs over the course of about 300 years. Alien: Earth will be set right at the beginning, about 30 years before the original film. That timeline puts it concurrent to Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, which set about explaining in some detail the origins of human, Xenomorph, and maybe all life within this universe.
Here’s the timeline of the Alien series:
- Prometheus: 2089 – 2093
- Alien: Earth: ~2092
- Alien: Covenant: 2104
- Alien: 2122
- Alien: Romulus: 2142
- Aliens: 2179
- Alien 3: 2179
- Alien: Resurrection: 2381
With any luck, we’ll see some crossover between the events of Prometheus and Alien: Earth, but that’ll maybe happen in a later season.
When is ‘Alien: Earth’ Coming Out?
We don’t have a specific release date yet beyond knowing that the show will be coming to Hulu in early 2025. When we know more, you’ll know more.
