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What the Legion series did for X-Men, Noah Hawley is aiming to do it again with Alien: Earth

FX showrunner Hawley knows that the heart of X-Men stories isn't in the superpowers, it's in the people. He also knows that the Alien films work the same way

I'm a massive fan of Fargo showrunner Noah Hawley - I'd watch a show about me doing my taxes if he were attached to it (needless to say, it would be a Black Mirror-esque horror tragedy). So when I found out Hawley was getting his hands on beloved monster the xenomorph, I imagined I couldn't get much more excited for the show. And hey, I was wrong! Because it turns out, Hawley isn't just adapting the Alien movies to TV, he's giving the franchise the same treatment he gave the X-Men franchise for his groundbreaking sci-fi series Legion.

What exactly does that mean? We'll let Hawley himself explain it.

Speaking to Phil Nobile Jr. in the most recent issue of Fangoria, Hawley says that his hope for the upcoming Alien TV series on FX is that audiences would "[come] for the creatues, [stay] for the characters," and that the way to ensure his plan would work was to remove the sci-fi elements from the story during the creative process.

"I did the same thing with Legion," Hawley says, "Where I thought, 'Take the superpowers out of it: what's the show?' And here we said, 'Let's take the monsters out for a minute and think about what the show's about without monsters.' Certainly any long-form story, for lack of a better phrase, becomes a soap opera in which you have characters at odds with each other and undermining each other and trying to save each other."

For those of you thta don't already know, Legion is a series that follows characters loosely adapted from X-Men comics. And if you didn't read the above "soap opera" quote and not think of Marvel's most dysfunctional family, I'd be very curious to know if you've ever read any of the comics.

"All the heroic and villainous idea have to be brought into this world," Hawley says of Alien: Earth, "And then if we can make a really great show, and then add the monsters back in, now it escalates."

Just to be clear, fellow xenomorph fans - Hawley is absolutely including monsters in this series. The 'taking them out' he talks about is only for the writers' room planning of the show. In fact, Hawley went on in the interview to tease that we might be seeing more than just the titular Aliens in this show... or at least, perhaps a new species of them.

"I think that we're doing some things with the creatures," Hawley tells his interviewer, "that have not been done in the Alien franchise before."

Alien: Earth comes to FX August 12. Fans interested in Legion can stream the series, in full, on Hulu.


If you love aliens bursting out of chests and hugging your face, then we have all you could want from  Popverse's Alien watch order, details on where Romulus fits into the Alien timeline, and all you need to know  on the upcoming Aliens TV show with Timothy Oliphant.

 

Grant DeArmitt

Grant DeArmitt: Grant DeArmitt (he/him) likes horror, comics, and the unholy union of the two. As Popverse's Staff Writer, he criss-crosses the pop culture landscape bringing you the news and opinions about the big things (and the next big things). In the past, and despite their better judgment, he has written for Nightmare on Film Street and Newsarama. He lives in Brooklyn with his partner, Kingsley, and corgi, Legs.

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