Ridley Scott is one of the most iconic directors of both his and any generation. He made the venerated classics Gladiator and Blade Runner, and the 83-year-old auteur has two films being released this winter: Medieval drama The Last Duel with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck and House of Gucci with Lady Gaga and Adam Driver.
However, his best known film is probably Alien, a franchise that’s produced bushels of sequels, spin-offs, and video games. Recently, we got word that FX was rebooting the franchise as a TV series.
Noah Hawley, who runs Fargo and Legion, is running the new show. Ripley, the main character of the initial movies, won’t appear in the series. It’s also set on earth, not a spaceship.
In an interview with The Independent, Scott shared his views on the new show.
“It’ll never be as good as the first one. That’s what I’ll say.”
The statement is very on-brand for a man whose laser-focused vision has produced billions at the box office over the years.
Scott famously resurrected the franchise in 2012 with Prometheus, although he didn’t bring the famed xenomorphs. The movie made over $400 million at the box office. He brought the aliens back for the 2017 follow-up Alien: Covenant. That one made around $240 million.
“When you’ve got a marvelous beast, it does wear out and you have to actually think again,” Scott said.
The new show will have a decidedly different take on the franchise, according to showrunner Hawley.
It’s not a Ripley story. She’s one of the great characters of all time, and I think the story has been told pretty perfectly, and I don’t want to mess with it. It’s a story that’s set on Earth also. The alien stories are always trapped… Trapped in a prison, trapped in a spaceship. I thought it would be interesting to open it up a little bit so that the stakes of “What happens if you can’t contain it?” are more immediate.
There is currently no concrete release date for the new Alien TV show.