Ridley Scott’s Next Alien Movie Could Fix His Messy Canon — But There's a Catch
Will the David era ever make sense?
The more xenomorphs pop out of people’s bodies, the more complicated Alien canon becomes. In 1979, Ridley Scott took an undercooked screenplay from Dan O’Bannon and turned it into one of the most enduring masterpieces of science fiction. Since then, no two Alien fans can agree as to which sequel, spinoff, prequel or midquel has lived up to the brilliance of the original — though most will admit that James Cameron’s 1986 film Aliens is also solid, even if it was a tonal departure from the original. Even Ridley Scott’s prequels, Prometheus (2012) and Alien: Covenant (2017), changed the chest-bursting game in surprising ways.
The Alien franchise seems to be going in several different directions at once (a new TV show from Noah Hawley set on Earth in the late 21st century, a possible sequel to Alien: Romulus, and maybe a new Alien vs. Predator mash-up) and Ridley Scott loyalists are wondering if we’ll ever return to his weirder prequel world featuring the human-hating robot David (Michael Fassbender) and his evil masterplan. Right now, there’s a glimmer of hope that Uncle Ridley will be able to continue his cooky Alien vision. Maybe.
Ridley Scott will “develop” a new Alien movie
Ridley Scott at the premiere of Alien: Romulus.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Ridley Scott has “revealed he’s developing a new Alien movie for 20th Century Studios in the wake of Romulus’ success.” Right now, this isn’t surprising since Scott was a producer on Romulus and even gave director Fede Álvarez specific advice on how to craft the movie. So, presumably, the next Alien movie Scott would oversee or develop would be the already discussed, very likely Romulus follow-up, which would, in theory, depict the further adventures of Rain (Cailee Spaeny) and Andy (David Jonsson) after their narrow escape from the alien-human hybrid and the titular Romulus lab.
So, from a certain point-of-view, the next Ridley Scott-connected Alien movie is simply that: something connected to Romulus. However, taken in concert with Scott’s other comments in the same interview, suddenly, it feels like Scott himself might be warming up to do his own continuation of the mythos he codified 12 years ago with Prometheus.
Taking back the Alien brand
Ridley Scott directing Alien.
Elsewhere in the same article, Scott expresses very clear frustration with not having more control over the Alien brand overall. “I resurrected a dead Alien [franchise] with Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, and we should have rejoined the ownership right then, and we didn’t, because someone was careless,” he says. He also adds that he felt that he didn’t feel that he followed the example of his peers noting, “I should have locked them up, as [Steven] Spielberg did with Jurassic, and everything he does, and James Cameron has done with what he has.”
But now, it seems Scott has corrected this mistake and has more control over the sci-fi franchises that he created, specifically Alien and Blade Runner. As chief operating officer of production company Scott Free, Justin Alvarado Brown pointed out: “It would make no sense that another movie [Alien or Blade Runner] is made without Ridley and us.”
So it would seem that as of this writing, Scott is very much on top of what happens with the future of the Alien franchise. But what does that actually mean for the Alien continuity that he created?
Could the David trilogy finally be completed?
Michael Fassbender as David in the prologue to Alien: Covenant.
The idea that Ridley Scott might direct a new Alien movie automatically suggests a continuation of the stories he began in Prometheus. In that Alien prequel, we met David (Michael Fassbender) a specific type of android/replicant/robot who was pivotal in discovering bio-weapon technology from the Engineers. In Alien: Covenant, David seemingly reverse-engineered the biology of xenomorphs to create his own version of those creatures, which resulted in him smuggling face-hugger embryos onto a human colony ship.
From the point-of-view of the events of Alien, Alien: Romulus and Aliens, the David-influenced evolution of xenomorphs seems to be a kind of detour, or perhaps even a dead-end. Recently, Noah Hawley explained that his new TV series treats the xenomorph evolution as totally independent of David’s tinkering in the prequel movies because the creatures are “the product of millions of years of evolution.”
But the truth is, none of this is entirely clear, mostly because Alien: Covenant ended with a cliffhanger in which David was taking those little facehuggers out into the universe. Surely, if Ridley Scott were to make his own new Alien installment, he’d at least reference this event, and give fans of these specific movies a sense of closure. Whether that will happen or not is unclear, though. Scott may have more say with the Alien franchise than ever before, but that doesn’t those of us dreaming of android David will return will necessarily get our wish.
