Ridley Scott Needs To Let The Alien Franchise Go

It’s been 45 years since Ridley Scott’s Alien first terrified cinemagoers. While the 1979 classic has become immortalized by its tagline of, “In space, no one can hear you scream,” the Alien franchise has been making a lot of noise ever since. A slew of sequels, prequels, and crossovers have diluted the once-lauded horror icon thanks to their varying quality. But Alien name came back with a bang in 2024 thanks to Alien: Romulus.

Following the disappointment of Alien: Covenant in 2017, Evil Dead (2013) director Fede Álvarez took the reins for Alien: Romulus as another prequel to the original Alien. While Scott supervised the project as a producer, it was the first time he hadn’t directed since Prometheus attempted to breathe new life into the IP in 2012. There’s already talk about where the Alien name goes next. Although Scott himself seems keen to return, should the original director keep taking a backseat?

Fox’s Alien Universe is Expanding

Alien: Romulus boasts box office success of $350.8 million off a budget of $80 million. Although it’s still shy of Prometheus’ franchise-topping $402 million, many have called it the best Alien movie since 1986’s Aliens. Considering that, it’s no surprise that talks of a sequel began soon after. 20th Century Studios President Steve Asbell has confirmed that a Romulus sequel with ‘great horror set pieces’ is on the way, although the studio is yet to lock down Álvarez as the director.

Álvarez had already discussed plans for where he would take a sequel with The Hollywood Reporter, but cited the lengthy gap between Alien and Aliens as a potential window for when fans could expect the next entry:

If you think about Alien and Aliens, there’s seven years between them. But we definitely have ideas about where it should go.

He also mulled over the idea of a third Alien Vs. Predator movie, in which he could potentially bring things together with Prey’s Dan Trachtenberg. Assuming the studio wants to fast-track something to keep Alien at the top of the charts, there could be an unlikely return for Scott. In an October 2024 editorial in The Hollywood Reporter, Scott confirmed he’s working on a new Alien project, with a throwaway mention from the outlet that reads:

Scott also revealed he’s developing a new Alien movie for 20th in the wake of Romulus’ success.

There’s no clarification on whether this is the promised Romulus sequel, something brand-new, or a continuation of the plot threads from Alien: Covenant. Back when Scott returned to this world for Prometheus, he was open about the fact he wanted to create a franchise of four prequels that would eventually lead to the events of the original Alien.

The idea of waiting another seven years for an Alien movie is likely one the studio won’t be too happy about, especially as there are two Predator movies coming in 2025. As well as Trachtenberg’s Predator: Badlands starring Elle Fanning, Asbell promised that a ‘secret’ Predator movie is also on the way next year. There is Noah Hawley’s long-awaited Alien: Earth, but even if Fox holds out for Álvarez’s full-blown Romulus sequel, it’s possible for Scott to sneak in with something else. It’s not like he hasn’t mapped out a story.

Ridley Scott Needs to Learn From Alien: Covenant

Scott has always had grand plans for Alien in a post-Prometheus boom, and while that could simply involve him watching from the shadows as a producer, there’s a sense that he wants to return to the director’s chair. Back when filming Covenant, Scott told The Sydney Morning Herald:

If you really want a franchise, I can keep cranking it for another six. I’m not going to close it down again. No way.

This could be why he’s repeatedly expressed an interest in completing his prequel plans and potentially finishing his ‘David’ trilogy of Michael Fassbender’s unhinged android. The Covenant sequel was tentatively titled Alien: Awakening, and was due to move away from the Xenomorphs by having the surviving Engineers try to enact revenge on David. There was talk of this battle taking place on LV-426, suggesting there would finally be a payoff for the Space Jockey Ripley found in the OG Alien.

Scott admitted he’d made a mistake with the original run of Alien movies that ended with 1997’s Alien: Resurrection, saying he was wrong to think the ‘beast’ had run out. But, just because a story can keep going, doesn’t always mean it should. Critics point to Covenant‘s faults and the inevitability that Scott would try to bring some of these themes back into his own project. Covenant lost fans by expanding on the philosophical approach of Prometheus while losing the classic suspense that Alien is known for. There was also the baffling decision to abandon Noomi Rapace’s Elizabeth Shaw to focus on Fassbender’s David, giving a Blade Runner-esque warning about artificial intelligence.

Elements of Scott’s vision were already amalgamated into Romulus, with a mention of the ‘Prometheus File’ and some David-inspired experiments taking place on the Renaissance space station. It was here that the movie’s harshest critics felt it started to lose its way, with the Offspring leading to an action-packed finale that lost some of the movie’s early tension. While fleshing out the backstory of the Engineers and giving an origin story to the classic Xenomorphs is all well and good, Romulus showed they can be minor additions to the mythos without requiring whole movies of their own.

With Sigourney Weaver saying she’s done playing Ellen Ripley, and Scott potentially back in the saddle, it’s a shame that Neil Blomkamp’s Alien 5 looks like it’ll never happen. Similar to how 2018’s Halloween picked up following the original movie and nixed the sequels, Blomkamp was going to continue from Aliens and retcon David Fincher’s divisive Alien 3. While Scott could take Alien anywhere and deliver a truly great sequel to the solid foundation he laid in Prometheus, there are rightful fears that it would be another Covenant,

where character development is thrown out of the window in favor of tying together increasingly complicated scraps of lore. The mystery of 1979’s Space Jockey is best left as a mystery.