Entertainment

'Alien: Earth' executive producer on franchise's horror, sci-fi legacy

August 14, 2025 | 6:20pm

MANILA, Philippines — The "Alien" franchise welcomes a new chapter, or rather looks back at one, in the prequel series "Alien: Earth" that further expands the science-fiction lore that has steadily grown for nearly 50 years.

Since Ridley Scott's "Alien" in 1979 introduced the Xenomorph and synthetics, numerous projects and spin-offs have dived deeper into the franchise's mythology, each installment adding a little more intrigue.

"Alien: Earth" takes places two years before the events of "Alien," revolving around hybrids (people whose human consciousness are inside synthetic bodies) and crashed space vessel carrying creatures from the depths of space.

Philstar.com spoke with one of the show's executive producers, David Zucker, who is the chief creative officer of Scott Free Productions founded by Ridley and his late brother Tony.

Zucker talked about the franchise's legacy and how it continues treading the balance between sci-fi and horror.

He noted he was still young when the first "Alien" came out. Zucker recalled his first time seeing "Alien" and found it "too frightening." He came around to appreciating it when he got older.

"It was such a unique sort of collision between genre forms, and it's interesting hearing Ridley talk about it over the years and how the studio had encountered it," David said.

The executive praised Ridley for creating a world that essentially began with space truckers and faceless corporate overlords.

The "ultimate collision" then comes from Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley being under breathless assault from the Xenomorph on top of the threat that is Ian Holm's Ash, a synthethic.

"You realize we are as dangerous to ourselves as whatever sort of alien, spirit, or organism we might encounter," Zucker added.

The potency of "Alien" gave the franchise its reign and longevity, Zucker noted. The second film, "Aliens" by James Cameron, even turned to action with marine grunts, which still kept with themes of class quality.

This served as a foundation for the franchise to be translated in a long-form series like "Alien: Earth," where David pointed out showrunner Noah Hawley — creator of the "Fargo" and "Legion" shows — seized the fundamental thematic ideas and bring them into a modern context.

The corporate overlords now have faces — Samuel Blenkin's Boy Kevalier, head of the Prodigy Corporation, and Sandra Yi Sencindiver as the head of infamous Weyland-Yutani Corporation.

"We are getting our sort of modern experience of corporate greed and ambition, and how it's manifesting to the detriment of humanity," David explained, using Prodigy's creation of hybrids as an example.

He added that such an undertaking speaks to present experiences and conversations, through Noah choosing Earth as the main setting after past projects only alluded to, albeit, mainly being survival stories.

A Xenomorph in yet another new ecosystem and the creatures aboard the crashed ship only add to the possible ventures of "Alien: Earth."

Philstar.com then asked Zucker why it was better to further expand the science-fiction aspects of the "Alien" franchise in a series format rather than another feature film.

He believes films are limited to the extent one can take on the breadth of such human formulations that Noah is positing.

The executive used as an example the character of Wendy, played by Sydney Chandler, which David describes as "the most undeniable and uncorruptible version of humanity" being the consciousness of a 12-year-old girl in the body of a synthetic.

"What is she? Is she human? Is she other?" David posited. "What is the responsibility of humans in this world, when adults are acting more reprehensively than the honest intention of what synths may or may not have been programmed to do?"

David ended by simply saying the breadth of "Alien: Earth" would be very difficult to capture in the limited structure of a two-hour movie.

"Alien: Earth" is currently streaming in the Philippines via FX on Disney+.