Alien: Earth

Noah Hawley's Alien prequel series is a blood-stained Peter Pan parable, stirring subconscious fears of a life-changing childhood trauma on Disney+.

For the first few years of rehabilitation following an unreported head injury witnessed by my primary school teacher and classmates, which culminated in a brain haemorrhage and diagnosis of paraplegia after awaking from a coma, I didn't think I'd live long enough to become an adult.

My parents shared that fear and initially thought the hospital had sent me home to die. The reality was that medical staff ignored the advice of the senior consultant; I was immunocompromised, and within days, I was readmitted.

At the time, I was obsessed with puzzles, LEGO, Doctor Who, The Muppets and The Six Million Dollar Man. The latter's toy line from Kenner would play a crucial role in trauma therapy, as a 5-year-old, to begin to make sense of what had happened and adapt. I was the boy who lived.

So, I found myself empathising with Wendy, sublimely played by Sydney Chandler. Developed by Prodigy, a competitor of Weyland-Yutani, she is the first hybrid synthetic with the consciousness of a terminally ill child. A chance at immortality, but at what for-profit price?

Wendy's first scenes with the Lost Boys were profoundly poignant as I'd befriended children on the hospital ward who didn't get to go home. Hawley deftly cuts between the Maginot's monstrous managerie and children bravely facing tragedy with hope.

Hawley has said of the Alien franchise: “For me, the first film may be the best horror movie ever made, the second film may be the best action movie ever made.”

The unmistakable look and feel of Alien DNA permeates Alien: Earth. And I got goosebumps as composer Jeff Russo, like Benjamin Wallfisch (Alien: Romulus), adroitly weaves familiar franchise leitmotifs from Jerry Goldsmith, James Horner and more into a brave new world of MU/TH/UR.

Hawley's Neverland examines existential fears of climate change, artificial intelligence (AI), and tech titans vying to control our lives, but never forgets its body horror roots in the biomechanical grotesqueries of H.R. Giger unleashed by Ridley Scott in Alien.

Like many, I watched the original Alien far too young and the titular xenomorph has stalked my nightmares and woven itself into the fabric of fragmented memories of a childhood trauma featuring creepy hospital corridors, flickering neon lights and faceless adults.

Alien: Earth opens with one of the best pilot episodes of all time. Alien has found its Andor.

Have you watched Alien: Earth on Disney+? Let me know in the comments below.

Alien anniversary

Alien vs. Predator (AVP) was released twenty years ago. It marked the first time the fan-favourite franchises clashed on the big screen, which was teased in Predator 2 and explored in the pages of Dark Horse Comics.

Nick Smith, our resident US-based xenomorph expert, goes on a bug hunt in the spooky season.

Guest post by Nick Smith

It’s not just bullied school kids who spend their time hiding in lockers.

If you’ve played Alien: Isolation and survived, you’re doubtless adept at cowering from savage xenomorph beasties. If you haven’t played the Sega survival game, I highly recommend it; with its creepy atmosphere, sympathetic heroine, terrifying jump scares and highly detailed space-bound setting, it’s truer to Ridley Scott’s original movie than any of the movie sequels.

Since it landed in 2014, Alien: Isolation has left its acid mark on several games, including last year’s Jurassic World Aftermath. Some of the locations in Alien: Romulus were eerily reminiscent of Alien: Isolation’s Sevastopol space station, adding an extra layer of fascination for gamers.

Alien: Isolation has been hailed as one of the best Alien video games, but I would go one better – it’s one of the best survival games! No wonder UK-based development studio Creative Assembly is working on a sequel, announced on the tenth anniversary of the original game. It will be years before we see this as-yet-unnamed follow-up, but in the meantime, there are several excellent Alien: Isolation DLCs and another anniversary to celebrate.

October 10th, 2004 is the day that aliens fought predators in the Antarctic, according to director Paul W. S. Anderson’s celluloid fightfest, Alien vs. Predator (AVP). Inspired by a comic book, this ambitious film does not measure up to its classic predecessors.

However, the cast alone makes AVP worthy of a watch (or rewatch) this Halloween. Sanaa Lathan is a worthy, charismatic heroine. Lance Henriksen – Bishop in Aliens – gets a well-deserved major role as bazillionaire Charles Bishop Weyland, the template for some future artificial persons. Brits Colin Salmon, Ewen Bremner (Spud from Trainspotting) and Tommy Flanagan (Cicero from Gladiator) all give memorable performances, and Raoul Bova (Emily in Paris) makes great amuse-bouche for the leading lady. There’s plenty of action, some Ancient Aliens-level myth-building, and the predators get more screen time than ever.

So watch the movie, watch the skies, and don’t spend all your time in isolation. There’s safety in numbers, right?

What are your memories of watching Alien vs. Predator and playing Alien: Isolation? Let me know in the comments below.

Nick Smith's new audiobook, Undead on Arrival, is available from Amazon (affiliate link).

Alien: Romulus

Prey successfully rebooted the Predator franchise on Hulu and Star on Disney+ in 2022. Can Alien: Romulus do the same for the Alien franchise on the big screen in 2024?

Nick Smith, our resident US-based xenomorph expert, discovers a derelict space station harbouring a deadly cargo. Will it be enough to scare the TikTok generation?

Guest post by Nick Smith

“How many different ways do you want me to tell the same story?”

This is the question Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) posed to a roomful of heartless corporate execs in the 1986 movie, Aliens. The answer is a lot, as long as it makes them money.

After a steady trickle of special editions, sequels and rip-offs, a glossy new $80 million Alien movie (originally intended to go straight-to-streaming on Hulu and Star on Disney+) is filling Fox’s coffers. Although it’s directed by hot shot horror director Fede Álvarez (Don’t Breathe, 2013’s Evil Dead), Alien: Romulus fails to tell that same old story freshly.

Álvarez knows how to tell a suspenseful story – Don’t Breathe was an exquisite update of the ‘old dark house’ movies of yore, and Evil Dead’s female-centric cast and grave tone made it a worthy remake. Álvarez ratchets up the fear factor in Alien: Romulus, and there are some great set pieces, including a scene where protagonists are trapped in a lab with facehuggers, another with an alien in an elevator shaft, and a twist where the Weyland-Yutani Corporation places profit over human lives.

If these scenes sound familiar, it’s because you’ve seen them before in previous Alien instalments. Which is all fine and dandy if those story elements build on what has gone before to show something new.

James Cameron had the right idea with Aliens, raising the stakes and using Ridley Scott’s original as a foundation, not a photocopy. In the first movie, Ripley puts herself in danger to save a cat; in the sequel, she saves a young girl (it would be a shame if anything bad happened to her). In Alien, Ripley dons a protective spacesuit; in Aliens, she climbs into a load lifter. You get the idea. The moments are similar but different, reminding audience members of what has gone before while simultaneously satisfying them with an extra layer of imagery and theme.

Alien: Romulus does not take that extra step where it really matters. It’s the movie equivalent of a remix, taking sequences and dialogue from its predecessors and reusing them to tell a not-so-new story.

The law of diminishing returns has never been so diminishing.

Alien: Romulus is really aimed at 18 to 25-year-old moviegoers who haven’t seen those creaky old Alien movies – Scott’s initial instalment celebrates its 45th birthday this year – and want to take a ghost train trip to the future. The mumbly young characters are endearing (it’s Gen Z versus Gen Xenomorph), and the off-planet setting is wonderfully dingy, in keeping with Alien’s lived-in look.

Weyland-Yutani is ruthless from the outset. Life is tough and unfair for these feckless heroes in a way we can all relate to; they feel powerless in the face of capitalist greed. Any worker who’s been sponsored by a company or hired under unscrupulous pretences will sympathize with the dispossessed kids, especially the heroine, little orphan Rain (Cailee Spaeny), who desperately wants to escape her grim, repetitive lifestyle, dreaming of a better world. Spaeny and her castmates give believable performances, with David Jonsson a standout as Rain’s non-biological brother, Andy.

The film also brings an original cast member back, ignoring the nuances of a great British actor, smoothing over his subtleties with de-ageing CGI. Another nod to the first film denigrates Ripley’s victory, telling us that she did not slay her dragon after all.

There are problems of logic – aliens can survive a shuttle rocket blast, but not a gunshot – and pacing, where a tight 90-minute rollercoaster ride has an extra half hour of rickety track bolted on.

Nevertheless, if sheer visceral thrills are what you came for, you’ll get your movie ticket’s worth. Álvarez is great at evoking feelings in the audience, keeping them on the edge of their seat, grossing them out, and encouraging them to care about the characters. He taps into primal fears regarding pregnancy, genetic research, tight spaces, high spaces and losing a loved one, to name just a clawful. All underscored by composer Benjamin Wallfisch's (Blade Runner 2049) lush orchestrations filled with creepy callbacks to previous Alien movies.

There’s enough sick body horror and sexual symbolism to make even the notoriously gloomy H.R. Giger smile from beyond the grave.

As French film director Robert Bresson once said, “I’d rather people feel a film before understanding it. I’d rather feelings arise before intellect.” Turn off your phone, mind and memory, soak up the scares, and you’ll be on tenterhooks like I was.

Ultimately, franchises like Alien are damned if they try something different (as with David Fincher’s Alien 3 and the bleak ending of Scott’s Alien: Covenant), and damned if they don’t, keeping in mind that Alien wasn’t original in the first place, inspired by 1958’s It! The Terror from Beyond Space.

Episodic series offer a possible solution, with enough running time to tell a similar story with new ideas added. Netflix’s anime Terminator Zero is the perfect example of a show that refers to its source material, using it to tell a story of its own (the Battlestar Galactica reboot is another great example of this, so say we all). Hopefully, Alien: Earth, from Noah Hawley (Fargo), will perform a similar feat when it bursts onto Hulu on Disney+ in 2025.

While we wait, we have the derivative Alien: Romulus to watch as it drifts by like a sleek cryotube, a time capsule of older, better movies with a shiny new shell. Without the copied bits, this movie could have been a true sci-fi horror classic; instead, it feels like the company has interfered too much, insisting on a greatest hits package to maximise its profit. Judging by the box office returns, the company is right and audiences are eating this up with a bigger appetite than John Hurt at the breakfast table.

Despite the gripes, it’s great to see xenomorphs alive and killing, frightening a new generation of fans while acknowledging what has come before. As Bill Paxton’s character Hudson says in Aliens, “Hey, if you like that, you're gonna love this ...”

Have you seen Alien: Romulus? Let me know in the comments below.

Nick Smith's new audiobook, Undead on Arrival, is available from Amazon (affiliate link).

Alien: Romulus introducing Rain

Alien: Romulus bursts onto the big screen this month and the marketing machine has gone into top gear. On Tuesday, Twentieth Century Studios dropped a featurette introducing Rain (Cailee Spaeny).



Read the official synopsis:

"While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe."

The upcoming Alien franchise movie, directed by Fede Álvarez (Don't Breathe), is set between Alien and Aliens and is a hybrid of both.

The film stars Cailee Spaeny (Priscilla), David Jonsson (Agatha Christie’s Murder is Easy), Archie Renaux (Shadow and Bone), Isabela Merced (The Last of Us), Spike Fearn (Aftersun), Aileen Wu. Fede Álvarez (Evil Dead) directs from a screenplay he wrote with frequent collaborator Rodo Sayagues (Don’t Breathe 2) based on characters created by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett.

Alien: Romulus is produced by Ridley Scott (Napoleon), who directed the original Alien and produced and directed the series’ entries Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, Michael Pruss (Boston Strangler), and Walter Hill (Alien), with Fede Alvarez, Elizabeth Cantillon (Charlie’s Angels), Brent O’Connor (Bullet Train), and Tom Moran (Unstoppable) serving as executive producers.

Spaeny told SFX magazine that she looked to classic horror movies because she felt the need to bring different looks of terror to Alien: Romulus.

“The whole time I was making the movie, the second I got home I either had a sci-fi or a horror film playing in the background the whole time. Usually horror,” Spaeny told SFX. "So, whether that was having The Texas Chainsaw Massacre on or The Blair Witch Project or Near Dark, because you do sort of run out of ideas.

“You're like, 'I don’t know how to be horrified again today in an interesting way,’” Spaeny added. “I've got, like, three facial expressions and you've seen all of them about 100 times now!”

Originally intended to go straight-to-streaming on Hulu and Star on Disney+, Alien: Romulus is only in cinemas on 16th August.

Are you looking forward to Alien: Romulus? Let me know in the comments below.

Alien: Monday

Alien: Romulus is only a few weeks away from bursting onto cinema screens worldwide.

Paul "OtaKing" Johnson has released Alien: Monday, a 20-minute animated short film taking 6 years to produce, in tribute to Ridley Scott's original Alien.



Johnson previously produced TIE Fighter (2015), an animated short film set in the Star Wars universe, to critical acclaim. It was an homage to LucasArts' seminal video game from 1994.

What did you think of Alien: Monday? Let me know in the comments below.

Alien: Romulus final trailer

On Thursday, Twentieth Century Studios dropped a final trailer for Alien: Romulus.



Read the official synopsis:

"While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe."

The upcoming Alien franchise movie, directed by Fede Álvarez (Don't Breathe), is set between Alien and Aliens and is a hybrid of both.

The film stars Cailee Spaeny (Priscilla), David Jonsson (Agatha Christie’s Murder is Easy), Archie Renaux (Shadow and Bone), Isabela Merced (The Last of Us), Spike Fearn (Aftersun), Aileen Wu. Fede Álvarez (Evil Dead) directs from a screenplay he wrote with frequent collaborator Rodo Sayagues (Don’t Breathe 2) based on characters created by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett.

Alien: Romulus is produced by Ridley Scott (Napoleon), who directed the original Alien and produced and directed the series’ entries Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, Michael Pruss (Boston Strangler), and Walter Hill (Alien), with Fede Alvarez, Elizabeth Cantillon (Charlie’s Angels), Brent O’Connor (Bullet Train), and Tom Moran (Unstoppable) serving as executive producers.

Tickets for Alien: Romulus are on sale. AMC Theatres is offering xenomorph and facehugger popcorn buckets.

Originally intended to go straight-to-streaming on Hulu and Star on Disney+, Alien: Romulus is only in cinemas on 16th August.

Are you looking forward to Alien: Romulus? Let me know in the comments below.

Alien: Romulus featurette

On Thursday, Twentieth Century Studios dropped a behind-the-scenes featurette for Alien: Romulus.



Read the official synopsis:

"While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe."

The upcoming Alien franchise movie, directed by Fede Álvarez (Don't Breathe), is set between Alien and Aliens and is a hybrid of both.

The film stars Cailee Spaeny (Priscilla), David Jonsson (Agatha Christie’s Murder is Easy), Archie Renaux (Shadow and Bone), Isabela Merced (The Last of Us), Spike Fearn (Aftersun), Aileen Wu. Fede Álvarez (Evil Dead) directs from a screenplay he wrote with frequent collaborator Rodo Sayagues (Don’t Breathe 2) based on characters created by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett.

Alien: Romulus is produced by Ridley Scott (Napoleon), who directed the original Alien and produced and directed the series’ entries Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, Michael Pruss (Boston Strangler), and Walter Hill (Alien), with Fede Alvarez, Elizabeth Cantillon (Charlie’s Angels), Brent O’Connor (Bullet Train), and Tom Moran (Unstoppable) serving as executive producers.

Originally intended to go straight-to-streaming on Hulu and Star on Disney+, Alien: Romulus is only in cinemas on 16th August.

Are you looking forward to Alien: Romulus? Let me know in the comments below.

Alien: Romulus on the cover of Cinema Teaser

Alien: Romulus is featured on the cover of the French magazine Cinema Teaser (via AVPGalaxy). It depicts Cailee Spaeny (Rain) menaced by a titular xenomorph.



Read the official synopsis:

"While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe."

The upcoming Alien franchise movie, directed by Fede Álvarez (Evil Dead), is set between Alien and Aliens and is a hybrid of both.

Originally intended to go straight-to-streaming on Hulu and Star on Disney+, Alien: Romulus is only in cinemas on 16th August.

Are you looking forward to Alien: Romulus? Let me know in the comments below.

Alien: Romulus is an Alien and Aliens hybrid

On Tuesday, an official trailer dropped for Alien: Romulus.



Read the official synopsis:

"While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe."

The upcoming Alien franchise movie, directed by Fede Álvarez (Evil Dead), is set between Alien and Aliens and is a hybrid of both.

“To ask an Alien fan to choose between them is a perverse question,” he tells Empire magazine. “So I thought, ‘How do I do both?’” Brace yourself for a thrilling mashup of a haunted house in space and war movie. “There’s a moment where the characters are walking around areas familiar from the Nostromo,” says Álvarez. “Then they cross through that building and on the other side: boom! You’re in a hallway that looks like Hadley’s Hope [from Aliens].”

Originally intended to go straight-to-streaming on Hulu and Star on Disney+, Alien: Romulus is only in cinemas on 16th August.

What did you think of the official trailer? Are you looking forward to Alien: Romulus? Let me know in the comments below.

Alien bursts back on Alien Day

It's Alien Day officially celebrating all things xenomorph on LV-426.

The original Alien is back on the big screen and Alien: Romulus arrives in August.

Nick Smith, our resident US-based bug hunter, grabs an M41-A Pulse Rifle, flameflower and motion tracker. Stay frosty and watch out for dark corners...

Guest post by Nick Smith

In the caves, in the infancy of our race, we were warned by our parents to be cautious of the dark, venomous beasts that slithered and hissed in the night. One bite from a slug with teeth or a spray of acid blood from a horned lizard could incapacitate us, and spell our doom.

Now we are civilized, sophisticated, kings and queens of our concrete jungle. But the caution remains, the fear that one wrong turn in a dark alley will lead to an encounter with a harmful creature, something unfathomably alien.

H.R. Giger, along with director Ridley Scott and his team, tapped into these primal fears in the 1979 movie Alien, incorporating body horror, carnality, believable and likeable characters, and a lived-in environment.

James Cameron expanded the mythos in 1986 with Aliens, placing gung-ho action heroes in an untenable horror movie scenario. This double cinematic whammy contained enough richness and depth to resonate today, resulting in spin-offs in numerous media that don’t feel like soulless cash grabs worthy of the franchise’s fictional, heartless Weyland-Yutani Corporation.

The most-anticipated new part of this long-running saga is Alien: Romulus, directed by Fede Álvarez and starring Cailee Spaeny (Civil War and Pacific Rim: Uprising). Set between the first two classic films, Romulus is apparently a return to Alien’s roots; Álvarez’s track record (2013’s Evil Dead, Don’t Breathe) is impressively dark, tense, and creepy.

Filming of an FX TV series began in early 2024 in Bangkok; this earth-set drama has multiple seasons planned, focusing on corporate executives and their plans to exploit the xenomorphs. Fargo’s Noah Hawley is the creator and executive producer, and the cast includes Timothy Olyphant (The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett). While an Alien TV series was first proposed to ABC in 1980, this is the first small screen live-action iteration to reach production. The series should arrive on Hulu on Disney+ in 2025.

Marvel Comics has published consistently readable Alien mini-series over the past few years, including Thaw and Descendant. If you like your stories bleak and your characters ruthless, these are the comics for you. Just don’t get too attached to any of the heroes as they are graphically dispatched on the icy moon LV-695.

Aliens: What if…?, co-written by Paul Reiser (Stranger Things), wonders what would happen if Reiser’s slimy character Carter Burke survived the second movie, with entertaining results. There’s also Alien: Black, White & Blood, an experiment in minimalism that highlights the aliens’ horrible beauty.

Beauty or beasts, the xenomorphs will be around for years to come, lurking in ducting, stalking their way down shadowed metal corridors, always giving us something to scream about.

How are you celebrating Alien Day? Let me know in the comments below.

Nick Smith's new audiobook, Undead on Arrival, is available from Amazon (affiliate link).

Alien returns to cinemas on Alien Day

Alien: Romulus bursts onto the big screen this August and the groundbreaking original Alien, the first sci-fi movie to traumatise me as a child on home video, returns on Alien Day.



Read the official synopsis:

"One of the most influential sci-fi/horror films of all time, “Alien,” which was released in June 1979 and won an Oscar® for best visual effects, stars Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm, and Yaphet Kotto. It is the terrifying tale of a crew aboard a commercial spacecraft that lands on an alien planet to investigate a mysterious transmission of unknown origin and encounters the deadliest lifeform in the universe. “Alien” is directed by Ridley Scott, with a screenplay by Dan O’Bannon and a story by Ronald Shusett, and the producers are Gordon Carroll, David Giler, and Walter Hill."



Alien is back in cinemas to celebrate the 45th anniversary of Sir Ridley Scott's masterpiece on 26th April.

Will you be seeing Alien on the big screen? Let me know in the comments below.

Alien: Romulus teases terror

On Wednesday, a teaser trailer dropped for Alien: Romulus.



Read the official synopsis:

"While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe."

The old-school trailer music gave me all the chills. The look and feel of Alien: Romulus evokes Ridley Scott's original Alien, a haunted house in space, and survival horror video game spin-off Alien: Isolation.

The upcoming Alien franchise movie, directed by Fede Álvarez (Evil Dead), is said to be set between Alien and Aliens. Ridley Scott (Alien) is the producer, and James Cameron (Aliens) is an unofficial consultant. The movie stars Cailee Spaeny, Isabela Merced, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Spike Fearn and Aileen Wu. Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) is producing the visual effects.

"I wanted to travel back not just to the style of the original movies, but to the genre of the original movies," Álvarez told Variety. "I really wanted to go back to the sheer horror of the first film, and to take those elements of thriller that Aliens has, and Alien 3 has as well. We went to crazy extents to keep it pure to the film-making techniques of the first movie."

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter (THR), Isabela Merced recalls being on set during reshoots and holding an iPad belonging to the director.

“Fede Álvarez gave me the iPad where he watches playback, and he had the movie pulled up,” Merced said. “So I told him I wanted to see parts of it, and he showed it to me. I was the one holding the iPad, and there were ten people around me watching it on the iPad. So there’s a scene that I’m in, and they all had to turn away. Not one person stayed looking at that iPad because it was so disgusting.”

Hopefully, Álvarez's standalone movie will revitalise the chest-bursting franchise as director Dan Trachtenberg's Prey did for studio stablemate Predator.

Originally intended to go straight-to-streaming on Hulu and Star on Disney+ like Predator prequel Prey, Alien: Romulus is only in cinemas on 16th August.

What did you think of the teaser trailer? Are you looking forward to Alien: Romulus? Let me know in the comments below.

Alien series will ignore prequels

There are at least two Alien franchise projects currently in development for Hulu on Disney+. There's an upcoming movie from director Fede Álvarez (Don't Breathe) titled Alien: Romulus, which is set between Alien and Aliens, and a live-action series from Noah Hawley (Fargo).

Hawley said his Alien prequel series will ignore Sir Ridley Scott's Prometheus and Alien: Covenant.

“Ridley and I have talked about this — and many, many elements of the show,” Hawley says in an interview with KCRW. “For me, and for a lot of people, this ‘perfect life form’ — as it was described in the first film — is the product of millions of years of evolution that created this creature that may have existed for a million years out there in space. The idea that, on some level, it was a bioweapon created half an hour ago, that’s just inherently less useful to me. And in terms of the mythology, what’s scary about this monster, is that when you look at those first two movies, you have this retro-futuristic technology. You have giant computer monitors, these weird keyboards … You have to make a choice. Am I doing that? Because in the prequels, Ridley made the technology thousands of years more advanced than the technology of Alien, which is supposed to take place in those movies’ future. There’s something about that that doesn’t really compute for me. I prefer the retro-futurism of the first two films. And so that’s the choice I’ve made — there’s no holograms. The convenience of that beautiful Apple store technology is not available to me.”

Hawley’s Alien series shut down production in August due to the SAG-AFTRA strike but is expected to resume filming soon in Thailand. The ensemble cast includes Essie Davis, Alex Lawther, Samuel Blenkin, Sydney Chandler, Adarsh Gourav, Timothy Olyphant and David Rysdahl.

As a lifelong fan of the Alien franchise (I watched the nightmarish original on rental video), I'm excited at the prospect of xenomorphs sans touchscreens.

Are you looking forward to the Alien movie and series on Disney+? Let me know in the comments below.

Fede Álvarez's Alien begins filming

Whilst we wait for further details regarding the Alien live-action spin-off series from Noah Hawley (Fargo) coming to FX on Hulu and Star on Disney+, the next Alien movie begins filming this month in Budapest.

Here's a brief synopsis released by 20th Century Studios:

"A group of young people on a distant world, who find themselves in a confrontation with the most terrifying life form in the universe."

Fede Álvarez (Don't Breathe) is directing the Hulu production with Sir Ridley Scott (Alien) as executive producer. The movie stars Cailee Spaeny, Isabela Merced, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Spike Fearn and Aileen Wu. The working title is purportedly Alien: Romulus.

Hopefully, Álvarez's straight-to-streaming movie will revitalise the chest-bursting franchise as Dan Trachtenberg's Prey did for studio stablemate Predator.

What would you like to see in a new Alien movie? Let me know in the comments below.

Alien series in pre-production at FX

Alien fans (myself included) rejoice. As reported by Deadline, Noah Hawley's (Fargo) long-awaited live-action spin-off series is in pre-production for Hulu and Star on Disney+.

"Noah is currently in production on the fifth season of Fargo but he’s in active pre-production on Alien, he’s written scripts," FX boss John Landgraf said during the Television Critics Association press tour. "I think he’s meeting with his production designer in Austin this weekend, gearing up for production this year after he completes the fifth season of Fargo."

Hawley's Alien spin-off series was first announced during the pandemic in 2020. Whilst we wait for further details, you can read Nick Smith's thoughts on the state of the franchise here.

Are you looking forward to the Alien spin-off series? Let me know in the comments below.

Blade Runner 2099 greenlit by Amazon

Not content with making the most expensive streaming series ever made in the form of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (exclusively on Amazon Prime), Amazon Studios is producing a Blade Runner series set 50 years after Blade Runner 2049.

“We recognise that we have a very high bar to meet with this next instalment [sic],” Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson, co-CEOs and co-founders of Alcon, said in a statement. “Together with Silka and our partners at Amazon, and Scott Free Productions, we hope that we can live up to that standard and delight audiences with the next generation of Blade Runner.”

Amazon Studios’ head of global television, Vernon Sanders, says Sir Ridley Scott’s (Alien) original 1982 film is one of the greatest and most influential sci-fi movies of all time.

“We are honoured to be able to present this continuation of the Blade Runner franchise, and are confident that by teaming up with Ridley, Alcon Entertainment, Scott Free Productions and the remarkably talented Silka Luisa, Blade Runner 2099 will uphold the intellect, themes and spirit of its film predecessors,” Sanders said.

Personally, I loved Blade Runner 2049 as evidenced in my review of director Denis Villeneuve's (Dune) superlative sequel to Scott's Blade Runner. There were tears of joy in the rain.

Are you looking forward to Blade Runner 2099? Let me know in the comments below.

Alien Day toy bug hunt

It's Alien Day celebrating all things xenomorph on LV-426.

So what better time to examine the plastic fantastic incarnations of the monster that first terrorised the ill-fated crew of the Nostromo.

Nick Smith, our resident US-based collectable guru, goes on a toy bug hunt.

Guest post by Nick Smith

The internet can be a deep, deep rabbit hole, fluffy tail and all. While immersing myself in the intense video game Alien: Isolation, I was compelled to check out the toys that have accompanied the Alien saga.

I find it fascinating that there are toys associated with such a visceral, fatalistic franchise, proof that America never misses a chance to prize making a buck over childhood innocence. Sure, there have been monster movie toys since plastic was mouldable; Aurora Monster Scenes were rattling around in the ‘60s.

But the monster movies that spawned those toys were not the R-rated equivalent of plastic reliquaries for kids.

Picture little Johnny’s playroom, where tiny terrible xenos with two sets of jaws and acid blood take on Disney stablemate Buzz Lightyear. Or imagine toy developers going wild, creating alien shapes that have burst from different animals.

Fox’s films have always struggled to merge rollercoaster horror scares and iconic characterization with marketable monsters and space action that appeals to teens – and since the paintings of H.R. Giger formed the basis for those monsters, the way the Alien films have been developed and marketed is a quintessential example of art vs commerce.

Thanks to nerd culture, you don’t have to be a kid to play with action figures, as long as you don’t mind getting a few strange looks down the pub. My own online research was spurred by the recent appearance of Alien tie-in toys in my local Wal-Mart, where you’re more likely to see a hillbilly in slippers than a space marine.

The action figures are an eye-catching surprise, considering the last movie, Alien: Covenant, is four years old.

The toy range retains the late, great and rather sick H.R. Giger’s artistic xenomorph design, which helped the original Alien film transcend its B-movie trappings to become an eternally watchable classic. But there have been other, more faithful figures through the years, as well as goofy caricatures and cute Lego-like chestbursters.

Reports of Corporal Hicks’ death in ALIEN³ may have been exaggerated, since he turned up as a Kenner toy in 1992, the same year David Fincher’s gloomy movie was released. Most of Kenner’s toys were based on the earlier Aliens movie, and the figures included a gorilla alien, a snake alien and a queen hive playset.

Sadly, the toys were not remotely as popular as Kenner’s Star Wars range, probably because its target buyers weren’t even supposed to be watching the Alien saga. Kenner dropped the line in 1995 and it was a long time before we got new figures from a new company.

NECA (National Entertainment Collectibles Association) first caught the attention of collectors in 2001 with a range of 7” figures based on the Tim Burton film Beetlejuice. These were followed by toys based on Tron, Ghostbusters, A Nightmare on Elm Street and many other popular properties.

By 2013, NECA was hatching various Alien toys and figures, with a big push for Alien’s 40th anniversary in 2019. The wide range includes a replica of the original Alien and the sinister foes from Alien: Isolation. The attention to detail is excellent, although there have been reports of a limb or two coming loose in packaging. Let’s blame it on the acid blood.

The Minimates aliens are intricate and charmingly chunky, as all Minimates are designed to be. However, they are as flimsy as the plot point that brings Ripley back to life in Alien Resurrection. The alien’s tail and paws fall off at the drop of a space helmet, so keep close track of the pieces or they’ll be lost in the space behind your display cabinet. But these figures are still a lot cuter than a sci-fi horror movie toy has any right to be.

When I spotted a Funko Pop! of Katherine ‘Danny’ Daniels from Alien: Covenant in a bookstore bargain bin, I had to pick her up. In hindsight, the astoundingly popular, ridiculously bug-eyed pieces of plastic are my fave thing about that movie (sorry, Sir Ridley).

The Lanard Toys Aliens may be the wrong colour, but it’s a joy to see them on the shelves when I visit my local superstore. Their kid-friendly green colour is apparently deemed less disturbing than the glossy, crustacean black of the movie aliens. They lurk in Wal-Mart, waiting to draw some unsuspecting pre-teen into their nihilistic world. My favourite in the range is a glowing, semi-translucent alien that ties in, intentionally or not, with Marvel Comics' Aftermath.

As the Alien franchise has aged, it has gained a split personality, trying to please target-age cinemagoers and veteran fans who’ve been loyal since the ‘70s. Neither of these age groups is going to rush to Wal-Mart to pick up a kid’s toy.

Veterans are more likely to drop dollars on NECA’s realistic figurines. The ironically goofy-looking Minimates and Funko Pops! might appeal to 18-25-year-olds.

If Lanard Toys' Alien line is successful, maybe we’ll see more unlikely movies turned into toys. Hey kids, do you want to play a game with Jigsaw?

Alien on Hulu

According to The Hollywood Reporter (THR), a new standalone Alien movie is in the works along with a live-action spin-off series already greenlit for FX on Hulu and Star on Disney+.

Fede Álvarez, the lauded horror director behind Don’t Breathe, will write and direct an original standalone movie in the storied franchise for Hulu. Sir Ridley Scott, who directed the original Alien and prequels Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, will produce the upcoming movie and series for the House of Mouse.

Álvarez is reportedly eschewing big blockbuster thrills in favour of Alien's nightmarish haunted house roots.

In related news. Alien is coming to Star on Disney+ this month. Hopefully, it'll be available in 4K UHD like the original Predator, which has never looked better.

Are you looking forward to the new Alien movie and spin-off series? Let me know in the comments below.

Alan Ladd Jr., who greenlit Star Wars, dies

Oscar-winning producer Alan Ladd Jr. has passed away at the age of 84.

His daughter Amanda Ladd-Jones, director of a documentary about her father entitled "Laddie: The Man Behind the Movies," broke the news on that film's official Facebook page:

"With the heaviest of hearts, we announce that on March 2, 2022, Alan Ladd Jr. died peacefully at home surrounded by his family. Words cannot express how deeply he will be missed. His impact on films and filmmaking will live on in his absence."

Ladd famously backed George Lucas' Star Wars when other Hollywood studios passed on the project.

“My biggest contribution to Star Wars was keeping my mouth shut and standing by the picture,” Ladd told Variety.

Ladd also greenlit Star Wars' Twentieth Century Fox stablemate Alien with Sir Ridley Scott at the helm.

He is survived by his wife, Cindra Pincock, his children Kelliann and Tracy Ladd, his half-brother David Ladd, half-sister Alana Ladd, and step-sister Carol Lee Stuart-Ladd.

As a lifelong Star Wars fan, I thank you, Alan. The film Force was with you. RIP.

Alien and Blade Runner series teased

An Alien spin-off series is already in development for FX on Hulu and Star on Disney+.

However, Sir Ridley Scott (Gladiator), speaking to BBC Radio 4, has confirmed a live-action Blade Runner spin-off series is also in development.

Scott told the BBC's Today programme: "We [have already] written the pilot for ‘Blade Runner’ and the bible. So, we’re already presenting ‘Blade Runner’ as a TV show, the first 10 hours.”

Scott's Alien and Blade Runner film franchises have spawned sequels, and these upcoming series should further expand their lore.

Are you looking forward to the Alien and Blade Runner series? Let me know in the comments below.