TV SERIES: ALIEN, FISTFUL OF DOLLARS

FISTFUL OF DOLLARS

According to Deadline, Mark Gordon Pictures is developing a project having acquired the rights, to a television series-based remake of A Fistful of Dollars.

Bryan Cogman is reportedly in talks to adapt the story of a wandering stranger who comes to a town riddled with violence, and uses wit and skill to trick the town’s competing gangs into destroying each other.

The film itself was a redo of Akira Kurosawa’s celebrated 1961 samurai epic Yojimbo.

ALIEN

One classic film that will not be getting a television series, but at some point apparently was, is Alien.  Fargo reinventor Noah Hawley had plans for it, but it did not get off the ground.  He tells The Observer:

“‘Alien’ is on some level the complete opposite of ‘Star Trek’. It’s sort of about humanity at its worst. There’s this moment in the second film when Sigourney says, ‘I don’t know which species is worse. At least they don’t screw each other over for a percentage.’ If you look at what Aliens tends to be, it’s usually a trapped story – trapped in a ship, trapped in a prison, etc. And because the Alien has this life cycle to it, where it goes from egg, to chestburster, to xenomorph, there becomes a certain routine to it.

I thought it would be interesting if you could expand. If you’re going to make something for television, you’ve got 10 hours let’s say. Even if you have a lot of action, like two hours, then you’re still going to have eight hours left. So what is the show about? That’s what I tried to talk to them about. As I did with ‘Legion,’ the exercise is: Let’s take the superhero stuff out of the show and see if it’s still a great show. What’s the show about? Let’s take the Alien out of the show. What’s the show about? What are the themes, who are the characters and what is the human drama? Then we drop the aliens back in and we go, ‘This is great. Not only is there great human drama, but there’s aliens!’”

Having also attempted a Star Trek series redo, Hawley has also submitted a script for the next movie in that franchise, one of three writers who have done so.