{"id":828799,"date":"2026-08-28T15:42:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T15:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/828799\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T15:42:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T15:42:16","slug":"memo-to-ridley-scott-no-one-needs-more-alien-covenant-movies-get-the-franchise-back-to-stalknslash-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/828799\/","title":{"rendered":"Memo to Ridley Scott: no one needs more Alien: Covenant movies \u2013 get the franchise back to stalk\u2019n\u2019slash | Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

If any science-fiction saga looked beyond recovery, it was the Alien franchise. For the 38 years that followed James Cameron\u2019s Aliens, film-makers contrived to find every imaginable way of not making a good Alien film. They tried killing everyone the audience cared about before the opening credits, marooning Sigourney Weaver on a planet populated entirely by bald British character actors<\/a>, cloning Ripley<\/a>, pitting xenomorphs against Predators<\/a>, and sending scientists across the universe to ask an enormous, hairless space bodybuilder why he made them<\/a>. They even ponied up the thick end of $100m for a film in which Michael Fassbender teaches himself to play the flute<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And then in 2024, we got Fede \u00c1lvarez\u2019s Alien: Romulus<\/a>, in which actual xenomorphs chase actual human beings down actual corridors for the clearly defined purposes of either killing them or putting smaller xenomorphs inside them. Better still, a year later we got Noah Hawley\u2019s Alien: Earth<\/a>, which reminded us that giant, murderous space insects are in fact less awful than tech trillionaires.<\/p>\n

Life was good, but as long-term fans of the franchise, we ought to have known it wouldn\u2019t last. This week, Ridley Scott \u2013 who kicked off the entire saga with 1979\u2019s seminal Alien but has yet to make a good sequel or prequel to it \u2013 revealed that he is developing a follow-up to his much-maligned 2017 film Alien: Covenant<\/a>. It would see the return of Fassbender\u2019s David, the murderous android who may or may not have started the ball rolling towards the horrors that eventually became the xenomorphs with his genetic tinkering, and who was last seen steering a colony ship packed with sleeping settlers and human embryos into the great cosmic beyond. According to the 88-year-old film-maker<\/a>, the new film will detail how David creates, in Scott\u2019s own words, \u201ca brave new world for himself\u201d. Further plot details remain undisclosed, but the British director did helpfully observe that AIs \u201ccan go off\u201d and, when they do, are \u201clike a bomb\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ridley Scott on the set of Alien: Covenant Photograph: Entertainment Pictures\/Alamy<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the first time Scott has talked up sequels to Covenant. During the publicity run for the film, he said a follow-up was already being written and that he would start shooting within 14 months<\/a>. He also suggested he could make as many as six more Alien<\/a> prequels, with the series eventually leading up to the original Alien. Eight years and no prequels later, Scott announced that he had \u201cdone enough\u201d<\/a> with the franchise and merely hoped it would continue without him. Now he appears to have reverted to an earlier mode.<\/p>\n

Part of the issue is that, alongside season two of Alien: Earth, a sequel to Romulus is already in development. \u00c1lvarez and his co-writer Rodo Sayagues have finished the script for the film, which \u00c1lvarez will produce (alongside Scott), while another director takes over. That leaves Alien<\/a> pursuing three different futures at once: Hawley\u2019s corporate small-screen nightmare, the stripped-back survival horror of Romulus, and Scott\u2019s portentous, quasi-theological android opera. Of these three approaches, only one has already been tried twice, to diminishing enthusiasm. Yet Scott apparently remains determined to finish answering questions the franchise is now thriving without.<\/p>\n

To be fair, Fassbender\u2019s David is one of Alien\u2019s most intriguing antagonists, but he has been the principal attraction in two films that made little case for a third. If we really need to see him again, a high-end television offshoot would surely offer enough room to complete his story. Eight hours ought to be enough for even David to finish explaining himself, and most Alien fans would watch to the end. But another movie in which David quotes poetry and perfects his egg collection while yet another crew of unwitting space colonists inspect it at suicidally close range? That is somewhat more doubtful. There are only so many times you can explain a nightmare before abject terror turns to outright tedium. Give David his limited series, then let the xenomorphs return to the honest work of killing supporting actors in ventilation shafts. In space, nobody needs to hear your origin story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If any science-fiction saga looked beyond recovery, it was the Alien franchise. For the 38 years that followed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":828800,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[88,206],"class_list":["post-828799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=828799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/828800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=828799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=828799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=828799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}