Alien TV show confirms its place on the franchise timeline as Foundation star joins the cast

Sandra Yi Sencindiver in Foundation
(Image credit: Apple TV Plus)

The upcoming Alien TV show has confirmed its place on the franchise's timeline as it adds another actor to its cast, Deadline reports.

The series will be set towards the end of the 21st Century, a few years before 2012's Prometheus and 30 years before Ridley Scott's original 1979 movie. It will take place on Earth, the first installment in the franchise to do so, and will reportedly follow the emergence of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation (also known simply as The Company) and their attempts to create android life. 

The FX series, helmed by Fargo showrunner Noah Hawley, doesn't have a release date yet, but filming is currently underway and expected to carry on until the summer, so it looks like we can expect a 2025 premiere. 

Sandra Yi Sencindiver has also joined the show's cast as a senior member of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation – she'll star alongside Sydney Chandler, Alex Lawther, Essie Davis, Timothy Olyphant, and more. Sencindiver is known for her roles in Apple TV Plus series Foundation and Danish thriller The Killing. 

Hawley's series isn't the only new Alien project coming our way, either. Alien: Romulus, a new movie starring Priscilla and Civil War's Cailee Spaeny and directed by Fede Álvarez, is hitting the big screen this August. 

"We used practical effects. We had the same people who worked on Aliens. They came back. They were there making the xenomorph. This is a creature that they have so much love for. We had puppeteers working on the face-hugger. So to see that – it all felt so alive," Spaeny recently told Total Film

"I had to turn off my 'nerding out' brain, because I was just like, 'Wow, it’s beautiful. Ooh, you put the Giger skull…' I had to turn that off. But it was properly scary. We set it between the first movie and the second. We were talking about, 'How could this be a child of the two?' So we have those heightened moments, but then proper horror."

While we wait for the Alien TV show to arrive on Hulu (and Disney Plus in the UK), check out our guide to the rest of this year's best new TV shows.

Entertainment Writer

I’m an Entertainment Writer here at 12DOVE, covering everything film and TV-related across the Total Film and SFX sections. I help bring you all the latest news and also the occasional feature too. I’ve previously written for publications like HuffPost and i-D after getting my NCTJ Diploma in Multimedia Journalism.