It's likely that one day we will see remakes of every single genre movie released in the 1980s, and apparently the next title in line for a modern update is the Graham Baker-directed sci-fi flick Alien Nation. A new version of the story is now in development at 20th Century Fox, and the studio has hired two new screenwriters to help make the feature a reality.
The Hollywood Reporter is saying that Fox has given the job to Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, the screenwriters best known for penning the first Iron Man movie all the way back in 2008. Right now, very few details are available about the Alien Nation remake, but the trade does mention two interesting tidbits. For starters, the movie is being looked at as the launching point for a franchise not unlike the one that has grown out of the rebooted Planet of the Apes. Secondly, an important element in the plot will involve how the aliens originally came to be on Earth.
The original Alien Nation, released in 1988, was set in a not-too-distant future where aliens known as Newcomers, after years of quarantine, are slowly being integrated into human society. The story follows the first alien police officer (Mandy Patinkin) and his kinda-racist human partner Matthew Sykes (James Caan) as they begin an investigation into the underworld of the Newcomers and the race's leader, William Harcourt (Terence Stamp). The movie was successful enough to lead to a television series, and since then there have been multiple TV movies made and novels and comics written.
Truth be told, Alien Nation might actually be a film that could benefit from a bit of rebooting, but there is one slight hiccup - and it's called District 9. While there are certainly many differences between the two films, there are also a number of things that the two features share in common. It doesn't help that it sounds like the Alien Nation remake will be digging into the quarantine portion of the fictional timeline.
Since Iron Man, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway have also been credited as writers on the R-rated comic book movie Punisher: War Zone. They have also been attached to the remake of Highlander going back to 2008, though that project still hasn't actually materialized. At this time, Alien Nation doesn't have any producers attached, so it's hard to say what kind of direction we can expect it to go in. Obviously it sounds like the film is still very much in early development, but we'll be following it as it progresses.
In the meantime, what do you think about an Alien Nation remake? Hit the comments below with your thoughts, and possible director and actor choices!
