Earth Won’t Break The Alien Timeline

Key Takeaways

• Alien: Earth will be the first Alien series, going back in time to Earth for a new origin story.
• The series will explore the evolution of Xenomorphs and show them as a threat already, diverging from previous interpretations.
• Alien: Earth may address unanswered questions from previous films, potentially weaving together the franchise’s complex history.

A new breed is hatching from the eggs of the Alien IP, and while fans are still shaking from the horrors of Alien: Romulus, the franchise is about to go in a very different direction. Coming to FX Hulu in 2025, Noah Hawley’s Alien: Earth is set to go somewhere the Alien movies have always seemed afraid to go: humanity’s home planet.

As well as being the first Alien TV series, Alien: Earth will chart a different era of the franchise’s history and take audiences further back than ever before for an origin story set on Earth. While this won’t necessarily serve as an origin story for the Xenomorphs themselves, it will instead look at how humanity gets to the sorry state it was in during Ridley Scott’s original Alien.

Where Does Alien: Earth Take Place in the Alien Timeline?

When Alien arrived on the scene in 1979, everything was pretty simple, and from there, the franchise moved forward from the year 2122. There was already a time jump between the original and James Cameron’s Aliens, with Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) being rescued in the year 2179. David Fincher’s underappreciated Alien 3 again kept it simple when Ripley crashed on Fiorina 161 straight after Aliens, but with another massive leap, Alien: Resurrection rounded off the original series with a ruined Earth in 2381.

Seeing promise in the early days of the Xenomorph evolution, Scott went back to the start and delivered Prometheus, a prequel set 29 years before the Nostromo’s doomed voyage in the first movie. There were plans for up to four prequels that would lead into the events of Alien. Although an Alien: Covenant sequel was abandoned, elements of this can be seen thanks to a Ripley Easter egg in Romulus. However, Alien: Earth ignores all of this and goes back even further than Prometheus.

Taking place in the year 2092, Alien: Earth lands shortly before Prometheus. That shouldn’t matter, because Prometheus mainly took place on the LV-223 moon, whereas (as its name suggests) Alien: Earth takes place on Earth. There could be some crossover, as Prometheus opened with Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) finding a star map in Scotland. Still, Hawley promises that his series will tell its own story. Speaking to Variety in January 2024, the director explained how he’s taking Alien: Earth back to the battered retrofuturism of 1979’s Alien rather than the oddly futuristic feeling of Prometheus:

“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.”

Despite the Alien vs Predator movies taking place on Earth, they aren’t considered canon thanks to the events of the newer Alien and Predator movies. Although Hawley’s series is expected to slot into the convoluted Alien timeline, Alien: Earth treading new territory means he’s more free than the movies.

Alien: Earth Teases a Different Origin for the Xenomorphs

Scott was criticized for diving too deep into the genesis of the Xenomorphs, with both Prometheus and Alien: Covenant revealing new types of aliens and implying that David (the android played by Michael Fassbender) was their creator. The Engineers had a mural of the Xenomorphs on the wall of their black goo bioweapons facility, suggesting they’re a much older race that David simply engineered an offshoot from.

Hawley is leaning into this wiggle room, and has confirmed that Xenomorphs are already a threat in Alien: Earth. This was then confirmed by the brief November 2024 sizzle reel. Again in the Variety interview, Hawley said he and Scott have discussed the logistics:

“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 […] The idea that, on some level, it was a bioweapon created half an hour ago, that’s just inherently less useful to me.”

With the first trailer showing a shot of Earth reflected in the skull of a Xenomorph, it hinted that the series would follow the species arriving on the planet. Instead of just focusing on the Xenomorphs, Hawley has teased that Alien: Earth will dive more into the antagonistic Weyland-Yutani Corporation’s obsession with developing artificial intelligence. This could tie into the casting of Timothy Olyphant as a synth called Kirsh.

Showing Xenomorphs On Earth

The official synopsis for Alien: Earth confirms some of the above and gives some serious Aliens (1986) vibes while not giving too much away:

“When a mysterious space vessel crash-lands on Earth, a young woman and a ragtag group of tactical soldiers make a fateful discovery that puts them face-to-face with the planet’s greatest threat.”

Hawley has doubled down on the unique setting of Earth, telling Deadline:

“There’s something about seeing a Xenomorph in the wilds of Earth, with your own eyes, that is truly chilling.”

He said that while he can’t confirm under what circumstances that will happen, there’s an implication that the aliens will be escaping their corporate cages once Weyland-Yutani inevitably gets hold of them. The fact the movies don’t mention Earth having been overrun by Xenomorphs means it might only be a small or temporary infestation.

The special edition of Alien: Resurrection showed Ripley and Winona Ryder’s Cal arriving on the ruins of Earth in 2381. In the same movie, Ron Perlman’s character refers to Earth as a ‘sh*thole.’ Meanwhile, in Covenant, David says that the human race is a ‘dying species’ that’s leaving Earth in search of resurrection. Even though it sounds like Hawley will undo some of the Xenomorph lore teased by Scott’s prequels and possibly reveal the status of planet Earth, the fact he’s been in contact with the franchise overlord suggests that it will all weave together.

Despite the non-canon status of the AvP movies, Hawley could even revisit the idea that the Xenomorphs were spread across the galaxy as part of a Predator hunting ritual. After all, Romulus’ Fede Álvarez has discussed the idea of a new Alien vs Predator movie. Either way, those frustrated with Covenant’s dangling plot threads could have some of their questions answered in this prequel. With Alien: Earth arriving in a post-Romulus boom of love for the Alien IP, there couldn’t be a better time to take audiences back to the start and put some more meat on those Xenomorph bones – especially against the familiar backdrop of Earth.