Jeff Nichols offers an update on his remake of ALIEN NATION

In 2016, The motorcyclists director Jeff Nichols was supposed to write and direct a remake of the classic 1988 film Alien nationwhich is a project now underway at Disney.

The project began as a film, then was revived as a ten-episode series. Now, in a recent director’s update, we learned that the series has been made into a movie again!

The original film starred James Caan, Mandy PatinkinAND Terenzio Timbro. The story is set in Los Angeles in 1991, “humans live alongside extraterrestrial humanoid beings whose spaceship crashed three years earlier.

“This coexistence is not always harmonious, as exemplified by the segregated slums and the uneasy partnership of police detective Matthew Sykes (Caan) with new humanoid partner Sam Francisco (Patinkin). However, the two begin to overcome their differences as they investigate a slum drug ring led by the elusive William Harcourt (Stamp).

Nichols was asked about the project during a recent interview with /Film and said, “It’s still ongoing. I finished the last rewrite of that – which I’m really, really proud of – a couple of months ago, I turned into them, and we are in serious negotiations.

“We’ll see. It’s a very expensive film and every time you make a film at that level, you have to hand it to the studio gods.

“We’ll see what happens. But it’s set in Arkansas. It says everything I want to say about humanity and the universe and the way things work. I would be very, very happy if I could make that movie.”

Nichols went on to explain how the project has evolved over the years since Disney took the project from Fox, saying, “The way the Alien Nation thing came about is they called and said, ‘Hey, do you want do it again?

“I was like, ‘Look, I’m a fan of the original movie, but no, I don’t believe in remakes.’ Like, why? I said, ‘But I have this original idea.’ And they really liked the idea, and thought, ‘Can we put that title there?’ ‘Sure, I don’t care. Give me a hundred million dollars, you can put whatever stock you want on it.’

“And then, of course, the Fox/Disney merger happened, and Disney didn’t want to move forward, and we were able to pass it on to Paramount without that title. So it’s really this project that I’ve been working on for years and years and years, and I still really love it.”

Speaking previously about his vision for the film, Nichols said: “It’s epic. I mean, it’s the largest canvas I’ve ever painted on, but it 100% looks like a Jeff Nichols movie, and I’m sure there are some Alien Nation fans out there going, “What the fuck?” ?’ But my hope is that if… if people come ready for a new story, they’ll like it.

“And I put my heart and soul into it. Being the project that’s supposed to make me burn out is the least… I’m not saying that to save face or to be cool. I put so much of myself into it that it’s set in Arkansas. There’s so much of me inside.

“When you accomplish something this big, there are so many things that are beyond your control. In a strange way, all you can control and focus on is the creative aspect.

“The winds will blow you where they blow you, but as long as you say where you want to say it, and whenever that stops, then you’ll have to raise your hand and say, ‘Boy, this isn’t going to work for me anymore.’

I’m curious to see this movie and hope Nichols can make it one day. I’d like to see what he came up with for the story.