Fede Alvarez is set to direct a brand new Alien film which will air straight to streaming, in the US at least.
After many stops and starts, it seems we’ll finally be getting a new Alien film. Since Disney’s acquisition of Fox in 2019, it seemed like an eventuality that the company would want to kickstart one of the latter’s most iconic properties as a movie franchise. We’ve known for a while that Fargo creator, Noah Hawley, has been working on an Alien TV show, but with the odd exception of Ridley Scott claiming another Alien film was in progress, things have remained dormant on the cinematic front.
We would imagine that part of this is to do with the tepid reaction to 2017’s Alien: Covenant. Although the film has its fans, it certainly has its fair share of critics too, and its box office was down in its immediate predecessor, Prometheus.
Naturally, this would have left executives scratching their heads when figuring out how to revive the series without sending it further into franchise purgatory. Ultimately, the path for Alien seems to be some sort of middle ground. It looks like we won’t be getting a new mainline Alien film, nor will we be seeing it in cinemas (this is certainly the case in the US at least). Instead, the film will air directly on Hulu in the US and won’t feature any of the characters from the existing series of Alien films.
According to The Hollywood Reporter who broke the story, the plan is part of 20th Century Studio’s wider strategy, which states the film is ‘intended to be made for Hulu as part of 20th Century’s ambitions to make more than 10 movies a year for the Disney-operated streaming service.’
What that means for us in the UK is as yet, unclear. Most likely, it means that the film will come to Disney+ although we’d dearly hope for a cinema release first. We doubt that’ll happen, sadly.
As for the project itself, Ridley Scott is producing and Fede Alvarez is directing. Much has been made of the strength of Alvarez’s concept, with the quality of his pitch apparently being the main reason interest in making the project happen. It will be a while before we’ll get to judge that for ourselves, but with Don’t Breathe, 2013’s Evil Dead and The Girl In The Spider’s Web on his resume, the filmmaker should certainly be able to nail the tone of an Alien movie. We’ll bring you more on this one as we hear it.
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