LISTEN: How Noah Hawley and FX Brought ‘Alien: Earth’ to Life; Kevin Feige Gets Candid as Comic Con Approaches

About eight years ago, multihyphenate Noah Hawley wrote a five-page pitch for FX on what he would do with the “Alien” franchise if he ever got the chance to work in the world established in 1979 by Ridley Scott’s seminal film.

Next month, FX will unveil its wildly ambitious, first-ever TV series take on the sci-fi franchise that has spawned eight other films across the past five decades. On the latest episode of the “Daily Variety” podcast, Daniel D’Addario, Variety’s chief correspondent, offers insights into his inside look at the making of “Alien: Earth” that is featured as Variety‘s July 23 cover story.

D’Addario reports that all of the major components of Hawley’s eight-year-old outline made it into the final series, which drops on FX and Hulu Aug. 12. That’s a testament to the strength of the writer-producer’s vision for adapting “Alien” as a TV series for the present day.

D’Addario notes that Hawley is a famously prolific “idea machine” who has the trust of FX leadership. That’s important given all that FX has riding on “Alien: Earth,” which has topped the budget of FX’s previous most expensive series.

“He’s a novelist. He’s written and directed feature films, and he just has the ability to work through this IP world without having it feel like a crass brand extension. It’s ‘Alien,’ but it is fundamentally a Noah Hawley show as well,” D’Addario says.

Also featured in today’s episode is a conversation with Adam B. Vary, Variety‘s senior entertainment writer, about what to expect from San Diego Comic Con, which begins on July 24 and is always a mile-marker for studios and networks. Vary also discusses his recent sit down with Marvel chief Kevin Feige, who delivered a candid assessment of the studio’s recent struggles.

Feige cited a startling statistic that illustrated how Marvel simply became overextended in recent years as it ramped up production to feed series and movies to Disney+, which has been an enormous priority for parent company Disney. From 2008 to 2019, Marvel produced about 50 total hours worth of film and TV content. In the last six years, Marvel has produced more than 120 hours.

“That massive increase in volume really diluted the brand, diluted their quality. At one point he said, for the first time, quantity trumped quality.’ And, that’s a pretty blunt assessment for what went wrong,” Vary says.

As for Comic Con, Vary predicts it will be less of a launchpad than in the past as Marvel is not hosting its usual state-of-the-industry presentation (hence Feige’s charm offensive with journalists), nor does DC Studios have a big presence this year.

“It’s generally going to be a little bit of a quieter Comic Con,” Vary says.

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