Alien: Earth showrunner reveals important things he followed while making the first TV series of the franchise

The Alien franchise is all set to make its entry into the TV series genre with the first show for the franchise, Alien: Earth. The show is all set to debut on Hulu and FX with its first two episodes on August 12 and then continue on a weekly release schedule.

The Alien franchise comprises seven core films and two crossovers, totaling nine entries. However, Alien: Earth marks the first time the franchise has been incorporated into the TV series genre. Showrunner and creator Noah Hawley discusses his experience adapting the film franchise into a TV series format.

Alien: Earth showrunner on making the first TV series for the franchise

The Alien franchise started in 1979 with Ridley Scott's Alien. Since then, the franchise has continued to grow with the movies and its crossovers with the Predator franchise. Noah Hawley, in a recent conversation with Variety, revealed that eight years before Alien: Earth, the concept of a TV series for the franchise was approached by FX and consequently rejected by the film franchise:

"film studio was not interested in sharing the brand with the TV side."

However, after the 2019 merger with Disney, this idea was reintroduced, and the network wanted Hawley to take up the mantle. Hawley was intrigued by the idea and decided to take up the project. However, he faced challenges when translating the film's franchise into Alien: Earth while maintaining originality:

"I want you to have the feeling that you had watching those first two films."

In a recent conversation with Screen Rant at the San Diego Comic-Con, Hawley revealed the challenges he faced when translating the film franchise into the TV series genre:

"Well, the biggest challenge is authenticity, right? It's different to make a sequel to a film than it is to translate it to another medium, which is television."

He then revealed that the most important goal for them when creating Alien: Earth was to ensure that the TV series embodies the franchise and its meaning. Once they'd managed to convince the audience tuning in to the series that the show understood the franchise, the audience would let down their guard and simply allow the show to tell the story that it was here to tell.

"And the most important thing is that, when people tune in [to] that very first hour, [they] very quickly feel like, "These guys understand what Alien is." The moment that they see that, then they can relax into it and just watch the story that we're telling them."

And it appears as if Hawley might have succeeded in this aim, or at least that's what Sydney Chandler, who plays Wendy, seems to think, as she says in a conversation with Variety:

"I loved that Noah did not try and re-create the movie. He was honoring all of the best parts of the film and made his own creation."

We'll have to tune in to the Alien: Earth premiere on August 12 to find out just how well the film franchise has been adapted into the TV series.

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