FX Chairman Talks Alien Series Length "It's Designed To Be An Ongoing Series"
Our friends over at AVP Galaxy have come across FX chairman John Landgraf answering a few questions about the upcoming ALIEN series and showrunner Noah Hawley. The series has already begun filming Thailand earlier this year.
According to Deadline’s coverage of #TCA24, when Landgraf was asked about a fifth season of Fargo he said it dependent on Alien’s success, before talking about Hawley’s approach to Alien and that the upcoming series was “designed to be an ongoing series.”
“[Alien] is big imaginative reimagining of that franchise. It was really fun to watch [Noah] take on the Alien franchise in the way I watched him take on Fargo, to try to figure out how to deconstruct where the magic of it comes from and what were the key ingredients and how he can deliver those ingredients in a different way without just repeating things that have been done before.
It’s designed to be an ongoing series. Then as far as Fargo goes, it’s a matter of timing because I’m hoping Noah’s going to be working subsequent seasons of Alien and really try to turn that around fast. But my ears always perk up when he says he’s interested in approaching more Fargo and I think he did an incredible job this year with season five.”
Last month, Noah Hawley also talked about the story of the Alien series would encompass multiple seasons and not be a limited one-and-done narrative, while also emphasizing that FX wanted “quality, not quantity.”
“I knew that their desire was for a recurring series, not a limited series, and I had an idea that I was excited about, that I could see the escalation of it from one year to another. That’s where we ended up not pitching them having a bible or pitching them blow-by-blow, but saying, “Big picture: this is the first movement, this is the second movement, and we’re ultimately going here.”
“Obviously, they trust me after all these years, and the writing was on the page for the first year. So, in success, you tell the story and tell the story until the story is done. They’re very good at that at FX, of not wanting you to milk something that feels like it’s over. Legion, for me, I thought ended quite elegantly in that last season with a sort of perfect circle, literally back to the opening image. If they’d said we want one more season, now you’ve got a detour and you’ve gotta sort of add a thing that’s not organic to the full story. It’s just better if the story itself can drive how long it is. We want quality, not quantity.”
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