‘Alien Nation’ Getting The ‘Planet of The Apes’ Treatment

I have fond memories of the original Alien Nation. I remember watching it on VHS a whole lot, and finding the whole “Humans and Aliens living together on earth” plot interesting as a child. It had a strong cast, too. James Caan. Mandy Patinkin. Terence Stamp. Good stuff.

Granted, I haven’t seen it in over 20 years, so who knows how well it holds up?

But now there’s news that Alien Nation is getting….wait for it…remade.

Art Marcum and Matt Holloway (Iron Man) have been hired to write a fresh new take on the original. The 1988 film told the story of Detective Matthew Sykes (Caan) and his partner Detective Samuel “George” Francisco (Patinkin), and their dealings with the criminal underworld. The catch? George is an alien, and they live in a society where not only has first contact been made, but aliens have actually moved onto earth and integrated themselves into our society- despite mankind basically trying to keep them segregated and given little rights.

The original film led to a TV series, and several straight-to-television sequels. Twentieth Century Fox’s ambitions for the redo are much loftier than that. According to THR, they envision Alien Nation becoming another Planet of The Apes-style franchise for the studio. They want to start with a film that focuses on the first contact between the aliens and mankind. Then sequels, akin to Apes, that show how our relationship evolves as the Newcomers potentially attempt to take over the planet. So it’d be a much more slow burn, sci-fi saga this time around- unlike the original, which dove right in.

Marcum and Holloway must’ve impressed people with their script for the upcoming reboot of Highlander, and the fact that they co-wrote the first Iron Man (which practically singlehandedly launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe as we know it) must’ve helped Fox decide on them for this ambitious new take on Alien Nation

While I’m usually pretty cynical when it comes to remakes, the idea of giving Alien Nation the kind of treatment that the Planet of The Apes series has been getting, actually sounds like pretty cool to me.

What do you think?

SOURCE: The Hollywood Reporter

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