Alien: Romulus may have brought the Xenomorph back to the big screen in style this summer, but next year we'll be getting another, very different sort of Alien project: Alien: Earth. From Fargo creator Noah Hawley, Alien: Earth is set before the original film on, you guessed it, Earth. This is an interesting move for a few reasons, and curiosity has been high among franchise fans about how Alien: Earth would handle this story. Now we finally know a few more details, as well as when we'll get to watch it: Alien: Earth is due to premiere in summer 2025 on Hulu.
This comes from a brand new teaser released today, which comes with the tagline "in 2120, Mother Earth is expecting." You can watch it above.
As for the plot details, Deadline is reporting some brand new information about the series. Alien: Earth is set in the year 2120, a mere two years before the original Alien movie starring Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley. This is different than previous reports, which put the prequel series farther back in the timeline. Now, it seems much more likely that Alien: Earth is going to serve as a direct prequel to set up the first Alien film.
"When a mysterious space vessel crash-lands on Earth, a young woman and a ragtag group of tactical soldiers make a fateful discovery that puts them face-to-face with the planet’s greatest threat," writes Deadline. "As members of the crash recovery crew search for survivors among the wreckage, they encounter mysterious predatory life forms more terrifying than they could have ever imagined. With this new threat unlocked, the search crew must fight for survival and what they choose to do with this discovery could change planet Earth as they know it."
Alien: Earth stars Sydney Chandler in the lead role, along with 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.
Hawley also expanded on what fans can expect in September when he spoke to Deadline during the Emmys. “There’s something about seeing a Xenomorph in the wilds of Earth with your own eyes. That is truly chilling to think of it moving here among us, and so I can’t tell you under what circumstances you’ll see that, but you’ll see it — and you’re going to lock your door that night.”
Alien: Earth sounds like it ruins the entire point of the first Alien movie, and I'm very nervous about it
So those are the details we now have about Alien: Earth. Generally, I try to give the benefit of the doubt to new entries in my favorite franchises; I've enjoyed Alien movies for years, even the ones which are widely considered stinkers. But Alien: Earth has always seemed like it was set in a fairly weird spot in the mythos, because it takes place before the first Alien movie...yet features a Xenomorph on the planet Earth. So far, only the much-maligned Alien vs. Predator movies have shown Xenomorphs on Earth, and we try not to talk about them. At the very least, they feel like a disconnected "what if" side story rather than a part of the solo Alien franchise.
A huge part of the Alien franchise's story is about keeping the Xenomorph from ever reaching Earth, because it would almost certainly wipe out the human race. This was a major plot point in all four of the original Alien movies, where corporate interests often wanted to bring it back for their own gain. To have a television show that just kind of has a Xenomorph on Earth already, a couple of years before Ripley makes contact with the first one on the planet LV 426, feels like a very strange choice.
I imagine that Alien: Earth is going to fill in the blanks for how the Weyland-Yutani company found out about the Xenomorph in the first place. In Ridley Scott's seminal 1979 film, it's revealed that the company knew about the alien vessel on LV 426 which contained the dangerous Xenomorph, and knowingly sent Ripley's crew there in hopes that they'd retrieve it. The android on board, Ash, had orders to bring it back to Earth for the massive payday it represented for the company. But Alien never explicitly explains how Weyland-Yutani found out about the derelict spacecraft, so there's room for Alien: Earth to make up something to plug that gap. But telling that story with a Xenomorph on Earth still feels pretty contradictory to the films, at least at first glance.
This also lines up with Noah Hawley's previous statements that Alien: Earth will ignore the mythos Ridley Scott established in Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, which show the creation of the Xenomorphs by the enigmatic alien Engineers and the megalomaniacal android David. Suffice to say, David never brought any to Earth either.
Maybe these fears are unfounded, and Alien: Earth will be amazing. After all, Hawley has more than proven himself with his hit show Fargo. I'll keep some hope alive, but for now, consider me very anxious. We'll see how it pans out in summer 2025. Two new Predator movies are also coming next year, so it's going to be a very busy time for fans of these two iconic sci-fi horror franchises.
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