Latest news with #RidleyScott
Business Insider
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Business Insider
'Alien: Earth' is about a Xenomorph crash-landing on our planet. Here's where it takes place in the 'Alien' timeline.
The " Alien" timeline has become quite busy in the last decade, thanks to Ridley Scott's 2010s prequels and 2024's " Alien: Romulus." So, audiences might be confused about when the new TV series, " Alien: Earth," takes place. The eight-episode series, which starts streaming on August 12 on FX and Hulu, follows a group of soldiers and androids after a ship carrying a Xenomorph (and other cosmic creatures) crash-lands on Earth. Presumably, chaos will ensue once the creatures escape. Like the other stories in the franchise, it will also involve Weyland-Yutani, the nefarious company that seeks to experiment on the Xenomorph for its own profit-driven ambitions. Here's where "Alien: Earth" sits in the franchise's timeline. "Alien: Earth" takes place two years before the original "Alien" movie. "Alien: Earth" takes place in 2120, two years before the events of "Alien," which came out in 1979. This means the iconic character Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is alive during the time the series is set. But it seems unlikely that she'll be in the show as she first encounters the Xenomorph in "Alien" after her ship is directed to a planet called LV-426. However, the show's creator, Noah Hawley, did address the idea of a crossover with the original movie when speaking to Vanity Fair in July. Hawley said: "I don't yet know, in terms of the series from beginning to end, how much time is going to pass or where we're going to end up, but I do know that at a certain point, the Weyland-Yutani Corporation is going to divert the Nostromo to that planet…We have the opportunity to maybe see what was happening on the other side of that phone call." The show is also set over 20 years before last year's "Alien: Romulus," which means Rain Carradine (Cailee Spaeny) and her faithful android Andy (David Jonsson) aren't alive in its timeline. Speaking of androids, we do know that companies like Weyland-Yutani are experimenting with creating android bodies for human beings in "Alien: Earth." Sydney Chambers plays Wendy in the TV series, a terminally ill young girl whose brain is transferred into a synthetic adult body. It will be interesting to see what the show has to say about humanity, life, and death through the lens of its android characters.
France 24
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- France 24
'Alien' lands at Comic-Con
The pop culture convention held annually in San Diego was the chosen setting for the world premiere of the FX series created by Noah Hawley. "This is by far the biggest thing I've ever made," Hawley told 6,500 cheering fans in Comic-Con's Hall H before presenting the first episode, which he also directed. And in Hall H -- unlike in space -- you could hear them scream. "It was crazy!" squealed Nicole Martindale, a fan of the franchise who traveled from northern California for the event. "It wasn't what I expected based on the Alien movies, but it was pretty cool," she added. "Alien: Earth" is set a couple of years before the events of Ridley Scott's seminal 1979 film starring Sigourney Weaver. Scott served as executive producer of this expansion of the franchise, which will hit streaming platforms in August. "If I have a skill at adapting these films, it's in an understanding what the original movie made me feel and why, and trying to create it anew by telling you a totally different story," Hawley told the audience. The panel also featured stars Sydney Chandler, Alex Lawther, Timothy Olyphant, Babou Ceesay and Samuel Blenkin, who discussed what it was like to become part of the storied franchise and share a scene with the Xenomorph. "It's a dream, it was surreal," said Chandler, who plays Wendy, a "hybrid" who is a blend of human consciousness and a synthetic body. "I've been a sci-fi and 'Alien' fan forever. I keep pinching myself." 'Tron' One of the world's largest celebrations of pop culture, Comic-Con brings together 130,000 people, many of whom come dressed as wizards, princesses or characters from movies, games or TV series. This year, the lines to enter Hall H have been less frenetic than in previous editions. Fans accustomed to camping out at the gates of the venue to get a spot inside say the lack of a big Marvel Studios presence has eased the crush. "Last year, we arrived the night before and had to wait hours to get" in, said Carla Gonzalez, who has attended the event every year with her family since 2013. "This year the first panel is about to start, and there are still empty chairs. If Marvel were here, it would be packed," she added. There was still plenty for afficionados to get excited about, including a panel on "Predator: Badlands" directed by Dan Trachtenberg and set to hit US theaters in November. Trachtenberg, responsible for revitalizing the franchise with "Prey" (2022), is expected to appear alongside stars Elle Fanning and Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, who plays the Predator, Dek. The panel is expected to reveal more details and images from the production, which places the predator at the center of the plot for the first time as prey, not hunter. Actors Jared Leto, Jeff Bridges and Greta Lee were also expected Friday to present exclusive clips from "Tron: Ares." The film, directed by Joachim Ronning, is the third installment of another beloved science fiction franchise, which began in 1982, with Bridges playing a hacker who becomes trapped in the digital world. Comic-Con concludes on Sunday.
Malay Mail
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Malay Mail
‘Alien' TV show lands at Comic-Con
SAN DIEGO, July 26 — The highly anticipated science fiction series Alien: Earth officially landed at Comic-Con in California yesterday, where thousands of fans watched the pilot of a new TV series in the franchise. The pop culture convention held annually in San Diego was the chosen setting for the world premiere of the FX series created by Noah Hawley. 'This is by far the biggest thing I've ever made,' Hawley told 6,500 cheering fans in Comic-Con's Hall H before presenting the first episode, which he also directed. And in Hall H—unlike in space—you could hear them scream. 'It was crazy!' squealed Nicole Martindale, a fan of the franchise who traveled from northern California for the event. 'It wasn't what I expected based on the Alien movies, but it was pretty cool,' she added. Alien: Earth is set a couple of years before the events of Ridley Scott's seminal 1979 film starring Sigourney Weaver. Scott served as executive producer of this expansion of the franchise, which will hit streaming platforms in August. 'If I have a skill at adapting these films, it's in an understanding what the original movie made me feel and why, and trying to create it anew by telling you a totally different story,' Hawley told the audience. The panel also featured stars Sydney Chandler, Alex Lawther, Timothy Olyphant, Babou Ceesay and Samuel Blenkin, who discussed what it was like to become part of the storied franchise and share a scene with the Xenomorph. 'It's a dream, it was surreal,' said Chandler, who plays Wendy, a 'hybrid' who is a blend of human consciousness and a synthetic body. 'I've been a sci-fi and Alien fan forever. I keep pinching myself.' 'Tron' One of the world's largest celebrations of pop culture, Comic-Con brings together 130,000 people, many of whom come dressed as wizards, princesses or characters from movies, games or TV series. This year, the lines to enter Hall H have been less frenetic than in previous editions. Fans accustomed to camping out at the gates of the venue to get a spot inside say the lack of a big Marvel Studios presence has eased the crush. 'Last year, we arrived the night before and had to wait hours to get' in, said Carla Gonzalez, who has attended the event every year with her family since 2013. 'This year the first panel is about to start, and there are still empty chairs. If Marvel were here, it would be packed,' she added. There was still plenty for afficionados to get excited about, including a panel on Predator: Badlands directed by Dan Trachtenberg and set to hit US theatres in November. Trachtenberg, responsible for revitalising the franchise with Prey (2022), is expected to appear alongside stars Elle Fanning and Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, who plays the Predator, Dek. The panel is expected to reveal more details and images from the production, which places the predator at the center of the plot for the first time as prey, not hunter. Actors Jared Leto, Jeff Bridges and Greta Lee were also expected yesterday to present exclusive clips from Tron: Ares. The film, directed by Joachim Ronning, is the third installment of another beloved science fiction franchise, which began in 1982, with Bridges playing a hacker who becomes trapped in the digital world. Comic-Con concludes tomorrow. — AFP
News18
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- News18
Johnny Depp Joins Ridley Scott For Dark Graphic Novel Inspired By Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde
Johnny Depp and Ridley Scott are collaborating on Hyde, a graphic novel inspired by Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Actor Johnny Depp is returning to the darker side of storytelling, this time through a creative collaboration with veteran director Ridley Scott. The duo is joining forces for Hyde, a new graphic novel inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson's iconic novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The project is being developed under Scott's production company and will debut as a graphic novel series this Halloween. Described as a modern reimagining of the classic gothic tale, Hyde explores the narrative from a sinister new perspective. The story begins after Mr. Hyde has already overtaken Dr. Jekyll, with Hyde now prowling the sewers of London. His malevolent reign is amplified by a mysterious serum that enables him to mutate others into monstrous reflections of himself. The visual identity of the titular character is modeled after Johnny Depp himself, who is also creatively involved in shaping both the storyline and the character's evolution. The series is created by Jesse Negron, CEO of the entertainment company Mechanical Cake. The property will be co-owned by Johnny Depp, Ridley Scott, and Mechanical Cake. 'To build within the world of Robert Louis Stevenson's masterful characters and to be welcomed into the vision of Ridley Scott… and inexplicably having the opportunity to explore, it's surprising to me. And hopefully surprising to him. It's insane and beautiful to receive that trust from Ridley. A master," said Depp, expressing his admiration for the legendary filmmaker. A preview of Hyde will be unveiled at San Diego Comic-Con, where a special panel will bring together Jesse Negron, visual designer Anthony Francisco, and other key figures from the comic and film industries. Discussions will focus on the cross-media ambitions of the project and the vision behind it. While the graphic novel series takes precedence for now, a film adaptation is already in early development, with Depp likely to play the lead role. First Published: Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Gizmodo
21-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
12 Ways ‘Alien: Earth' Is Respectfully Reimagining the Franchise
Alien: Earth creator Noah Hawley knows the tables are stacked against him. He knows the Alien franchise is a tough one to crack and that the idea of bringing it to televsion might elicit groans from certain fans. But Hawley is also really good at his job. He somehow turned Fargo into a TV show worthy of the incredible film. He made Legion one of the best comic book shows in recent memory. And he knows he'll never be able to remake or recapture the terror you felt watching the Ridley Scott original, or the exhilaration created by James Cameron's sequel. Instead, he's figured out a way to draw inspiration from those things, but also make it his own. The hope is that it'll create something that's 100% recognizable as Alien, but will also stand on its own as a way to totally flip the franchise on its head. Starting August 12, Alien: Earth tells a story set three years before the events of the first movie. However, while that was in space, this takes place—you guessed it—on Earth. There, a spaceship that was tasked with acquiring deadly aliens from across the galaxy is finally on its way home, when something goes wrong and it crashes. To explore the crash, a team of hybrids—synthetic beings with the consciousness of children—are sent in to explore. What they'll find is not just the iconic xenomorph, but several other species as well. A few weeks back, io9 was among a group of journalists who were able to watch the pilot episode of Alien: Earth (which was awesome) and speak with Hawley, as well as producer David Zucker, about all things Alien: Earth. Here are the highlights. Alien: Earth couldn't exist without the xenomorph, but Hawley knew he had to add new creatures to hopefully capture what makes Alien so special. 'One of the things you can never reproduce in an audience that has seen an Alien movie is the feeling you had the first time you saw the life cycle of this creature in that first film,' Hawley said. 'It's just unreproducible. You know that it's an egg, it's a face hugger, it's a chestburster, and all that. And so that's where the idea for other creatures came from. I want you to have that feeling because that feeling is integral to the Alien experience. But I can't do it with those creatures. So let's introduce new creatures where you don't know how they reproduce or what they eat. So that you can have that, 'I'm out' feeling multiple times a week.' Another intergral part of the Alien franchise is that, yes, the aliens are brutal killers. But the humans who are trying to capture them are often worse. That's why Alien: Earth will feature an equally important story centered on a technological race, personified by those hybrid characters. 'One of the interesting features of the movies, especially Jim Cameron's movie where he has that line from Sigourney [Weaver] to Paul Reiser where she says, 'I don't know which species is worse. At least they don't fuck each other over for a percentage.' Right? And so this idea about humanity and the terrible things that we do to each other, it really opened my mind as to the types of horror that would populate the show, not just body horror or creature horror, but also the moral horror of what people do. And the question is, if you take a girl and you put her into this synthetic body, is she going to choose human or other? And so it becomes about the push-pull between 'Well, why be human if this is what humans do to each other?' But there's such a beauty to the human experience, etc. So that's the tension, I feel like, that elevates it above just who lives and who dies.' Hawley's story is set in the world of Alien, with names and companies you'll recognize, but that wasn't the most important thing to him. 'I've said before but, if I have a skill at reinventing classic movies, it's understanding what the original made me feel and why, and then recreating those feelings in you by telling you a new story,' he said. That new story had to fit visually in the world of Alien. 'I was very adamant that technology-wise we embrace the retrofuturism of the franchise,' Hawley said. 'That is the visual definition for me. There are three classic sci-fi brands. There's Star Wars, Star Trek, and Alien. And none of them look like the other one. You would never confuse one for the other. And so if we want to make Alien, something's got to be dripping. Something's got to be rusty. You have to have those sorts of aesthetics to it. And then the challenge was, well, we're not even focused on the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, and we're on Earth. And so how, from an aesthetic standpoint, do you make sure that it feels like Alien to the audience when, obviously, if we're not on a ship, it's just not going to look like that. So that was a long, long process.' Yes, there are other creatures. No, it won't be focused on the life cycle of the xenomorph. But the xenos are in there, crucial to the show, and in a way you've never seen them before. 'We never really see these creatures within an ecosystem, right?' Hawley said. 'They're always sort of an apex predator existing in a space with no other wildlife, really. And I was interested in that idea of, if you're going to bring these creatures to a terrestrial environment, how are they going to change it? And how are other creatures, bugs, any of it, going to interact with them? So some of that we address, some of that is still percolating for future stories.' 'I think just the idea of seeing these creatures in a landscape, an Earth landscape, is such a profoundly unsettling and kind of exhilarating thing when we get to that moment,' he added. 'It really felt like such a gift after, at that time, six movies, to be doing something new, right? To have that opportunity.' Hawley knows that it will be hard, if not impossible, to top the H.R. Giger design of the original Alien. But he also knows he has to make sure these new creatures can stand up against them. So lots of care has, and continues to be, taken in their designs. 'I will be adjusting the design until they tell me I absolutely can't do it anymore,' he said. 'Every element of it, from the skin texture to sound design, it all goes to the 'Get into your nightmares' part of it. And mostly my hope is that people who watch the show will never do anything comfortably again.' So, yes, this is a new story with new threads and perspectives, but it fits in with the original movies in some fun ways. That's especially driven by the fact this show isn't on a spaceship or an alien planet. It's on Earth, which is something the original films have almost wholly avoided. 'It's the first time we're coming to Earth,' Hawley said. 'I mean, there's a little on Earth in Prometheus, but with no sort of expansion on who rules the Earth, what are the politics, how does that work throughout the galaxy, etc. And so it was a gift to get a franchise this big with very little mythology to it.' 'So that I could say, 'All right, well, what do we know about the next hundred years?' Hawley continued. 'It's going to get hotter. It's going to get wetter. I'm not betting against capitalism so I think the corporations, that power is going to aggregate. And all we really know about Aliens is that there's this corporation called Weyland-Yutani. And for me, I just think that story, that Weyland-Yutani story, is really interesting, but I like the idea also of introducing that there's still a competition. And I also thought, in terms of the moment on Earth. I thought about the moment at the turn of the 20th century where you had Edison and Tesla and Westinghouse, and you weren't sure who was going to control electricity. So I thought if we had that kind of moment in which it's a contest between the sort of cybernetic enhancements and AI and transhumanism—and, like any technology race, you know, you don't remember who the competitor to Xerox was, right? And so that was exciting to me to explore that.' In addition to the opportunity of exploring what's happening on Earth, Hawley loved that the movies gave him a lot of open space to add to the story. 'If you remember the movie, they just get sent to this planet,' he said. 'I mean, clearly somebody knows about these creatures, right? They knew enough to send them there, but their knowledge of these creatures [is a mystery]. Now, of course, [the crew of the Nostromo] has been in cryosleep for, I don't know how many decades or years or whatever. So that's the interesting thing about the lack of mythology is these people who find those first eggs have been out of contact with Earth for who knows how long. And so there is a gray area that we could play in and try to create something with as big a scale as possible to justify the title while still making it credible for the rest of the canon.' 'I've had some conversations with [the filmmakers],' Hawley admitted. '[But], you know, this is not a Kevin Feige Marvel Universe moment. I'm not saying that that in success that that we shouldn't be coordinating or thinking big picture about that. The show [just] has to be a hit before you can really have those conversations.' Hawley doesn't know how far the show will go along but, he has thought about potential links between the show and films. 'I haven't literally calendared it out,' he said, 'But we know that Ripley ends up in an escape pod and is found 57 years later. So we really have no idea what they know on Earth about what happened on the Nostromo. And so is my challenge really figuring what happens in those three years or in the 60 years before she comes back? So those are all active questions that were that we're discussing.' 'Well, it's not up to me,' Hawley said. But, in his mind it's a recurring series that could go on for more seasons. 'We created it as a recurring series, and I have great plans and ambitions for it as such.' For this one, we'll turn it over to David Zucker, the chief creative officer for Scott Free, Ridley Scott's production company. 'In all candor, we were approached many times [about making Alien shows] and there was no interest on our behalf,' Zucker said. 'And frankly, I don't think one could even conceive of delivering something of this kind of equivalency of what one can do [as] feature TV in this sort of modern era. But I think the thing that that also didn't exist before John [Landgraf, chairman of FX] and Noah had this conversation is somebody who could have this kind of vision, this kind of originality. Ridley was really, I think, enthralled by being able to relaunch the franchise. And he's excited about the extension of it, but it really required somebody who could take the essence, as Noah's talked about, and find a way to take viewers in an entirely different experience. And that that was just something we had never encountered before and couldn't have have imagined that that opportunity would exist. So the planets align, as they say.' The planets will further align on August 12 when Alien: Earth debuts on FX. Check back for more soon. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what's next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
