With the current historic Hollywood industry strike of the US writers and actors unions, things in the movie and series production world have been highly disrupted. Noah Hawley’s FX Alien series has surprisingly just started principal photography in Thailand ahead of its originally planned time in September. While initially it seemed that the series might be affected by the strike, we’ve seen new reporting on how the production is planning to move ahead regardless.
Variety and Collider have confirmed that the Alien series was planning to begin filming regardless of if strike negotiations were completed before the planned start of production. According to Variety, the series had already booked out soundstages and lighting equipment in Bangkok, and the cast is a mix of US-based SAG-AFTRA, and British-based Equity actors. Three of the main cast members are reported to be SAG-AFTRA.
We’ve seen some sentiment expressed online regarding the FX Alien series planning to move forward, specifically speculation that the location of Thailand was chosen in anticipation of the strike, or that the show’s SAG-AFTRA cast, such as the apparent lead Sydney Chandler, will be replaced with non-union actors.
So we felt compelled to set the record straight. Back in November of 2021, we reported that the Alien series was planning to shoot in Thailand, though the scheduled production date was delayed since then. We’ve also confirmed with our sources that the FX Alien Series was considering Thailand as a filming location as early as the start of 2021, and that a significant UK-based cast was also being considered around that time. There have been no stated plans to replace any of the series cast because of the strike. The UK actors union Equity is not currently striking, and the series will rearrange its shooting schedule to film what they can without the US union cast first. The SAG-AFTRA cast members are not currently in Thailand.
Thailand has been a longtime filming location for a number of prominent productions including The Beach, Rambo, Tomorrow Never Dies, and The Hangover Part II
We’ve also seen some say the show should halt itself to show solidary with the strikes, but such a thing would not be so straightforward. If performers or anyone else under a guild agreement is not subject to the strike, or prohibited from striking due to no strike clauses in their applicable guild agreement, but chooses not to work in solidarity with striking unions, they would be in breach of their agreements with the studio, and the studio would have the ability to fire and replace them, or suspend their pay.
As far as the writing is concerned, the scripts for the series have all been delivered. On this front, as long as any changes made are on-set and minor by the director, the series shouldn’t be affected, though fundamental rewrites can’t happen until the conclusion of the strike.
All of this is not to diminish our support of the strike, which we absolutely do, but to just get the facts laid out for fans interested in how the upcoming series is affected by and navigating the current climate.
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