Noah Hawley’s Alien prequel TV series is expected to arrive in 2025 and Timothy Olyphant is the latest casting addition.
It’s a good day to be an Alien fan. Not only did we just report that Alien: Romulus is set to take place in-between Alien and Aliens, but we also have another bit of xenomorph-related news for you.
Timothy Olyphant, actor known for his roles in Fargo, Justified and Santa Clarita Diet, has joined the cast of the upcoming Alien TV series, as reported by Deadline. Olyphant previously collaborated with Hawley in season four of Fargo.
The series is expected to arrive on our screens sometime in 2025 after the Hollywood strikes slowed its production down. Hawley began production in Thailand in July while the writers and actors’ strike was already ongoing, but without any SAG-AFTRA actors. Instead, Hawley was able to film for about a month with actors who belong to the British trade union, Equity.
“I got some footage. Some of the first hour was shot before we had to shut down. It’s stuff to play with and edit,” Hawley told Deadline in November.
We don’t know much about Hawley’s Alien TV series, but we do know it’s set in a time before Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley and the story is set on Earth, about 70 years in the future. Olyphant joins an impressive cast that includes Sydney Chandler, Alex Lawther, Samuel Blenkin, Essie Davis and Kit Young.
His role hasn’t been publicly disclosed, but Deadline speculates that he might be playing a character called Kirsh, “a synth who acts as a mentor and trainer for Chandler’s Wendy who is a hybrid, a meta-human who has the brain and consciousness of a child but the body of an adult.”
Hawley’s Alien TV series doesn’t have a release date yet, but the production is expected to resume in January.
