When Disney scored the rights to the “Alien” property after acquiring 21st Century Fox, many fans wondered what the company would do with the R-rated sci-fi horror franchise. Launched in 1979, the Ridley Scott-directed original film starred Sigourney Weaver as the badass Ellen Ripley. Since then, a new prequel series at FX led by creative hot-shot Noah Hawley (“Legion,” “Fargo“) and executive produced by Scott was announced. And just last month, a new untitled feature film for Hulu headed up by writer/director Fede Álvarez (“Evil Dead“) was revealed as well, so plans are clearly underway.
And according to The Wrap, the FX series is staffing up. Bobak Esfarjani (“Manifest,” “Archive 81“), who was nominated for a Writers Guild Association Award (WGA) for his writing on Marvel‘s series “WandaVision,” has joined the untitled “Alien” series and the sci-fi series “Kindred” as a writer and supervising producer.
READ MORE: FX Confirms ‘Alien’ TV Series Is A Prequel & Won’t Include Any Previous Characters
“Bobak has greatly contributed to FX’s upcoming ‘Kindred’ and ‘Alien,’ and now, under this agreement, he will be able to apply his considerable talents to other FX series while developing original content that draws on his vision as a writer and creator,” FX’s Kate Lambert said in a statement.
In January, Hawley telegraphed to Esquire that the Earthbound series might explore the ruthless Weyland-Yutani corporate machine in the “Alien” universe that is just as monstrous and dangerous as the xenomorph itself.
“‘Alien’ is a fascinating story because it’s not just a monster movie; it’s about how we’re trapped between the primordial past and the artificial intelligence of our future, where both are trying to kill us,” Hawley explained at the time. “[The ‘Alien’ series is] set on Earth of the future. At this moment, I describe that as Edison versus Westinghouse versus Tesla. Someone’s going to monopolize electricity. We just don’t know which one it is.”
Seeing how the companies became the dominant force in the universe, it could be an untapped narrative device that already has linage throughout the original four films. Even Scott’s “Prometheus” featured a deleted scene of Guy Pearce‘s Peter Weyland of Weyland Industries/Weyland-Yutani speaking at a TED Talk in 2023 (see below).
There is undoubtedly an evil corporation vibe to “WandaVision,” too, as the military agency S.W.O.R.D. ghoulishly resurrects Vision as a new weapon to help take out Wandaand claims the former Avenger’s corpse is their property, so perhaps that’s a strong theme for Esfarjani to continue.
Filming on the “Alien” series has been pushed from 2022 to 2023 as Hawley is busy directing the next season of “Fargo.”