It’s a Tragedy That Ridley Scott Is Done With the Alien Franchise (We Still Need One More Movie)

Legendary filmmaker Ridley Scott has suggested he won’t be developing any future Alien movies, and while others will be expanding the iconic franchise, there’s still one story we want Scott to explore. Ridley Scott directed the very first Alien movie back in 1979, based on a story and concept by screenwriters Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett. James Cameron, David Fincher, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet then directed sequels, but Scott’s return to the Alien franchise for 2012’s Prometheus and 2017’s Alien: Covenant revitalized the franchise. Scott previously stated he’d planned a prequel trilogy that would lead into the events of Alien, but this has now changed.

“I said, ‘I’m going to resurrect this,’ [and wrote] Prometheus from scratch – a blank sheet of paper. Damon Lindelof and I sat then hammered out Prometheus,” Ridley Scott stated during a recent interview with Screen Rant in which he also criticized Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection. “The audience really wanted more… I went once again [and made] Alien: Covenant, and it worked too. Where it’s going now, I think I’ve done enough, and I just hope it goes further.”

Ridley Scott’s Alien Story Is Still Missing One Key Story

Prometheus and Alien: Covenant marked successful returns for Ridley Scott to the Alien franchise, exploring the origin story of the xenomorphs, androids, and human investigations into the titular aliens. Fans of these prequels have been calling for Scott to return to finish his planned trilogy of prequels, developing one more movie to fill in the final gap between Covenant and the original Alien movie. Unfortunately, his new comments suggest this won’t happen, which leaves many questions unanswered.

Set over 100 years before the events of Alien, Prometheus saw the Weyland Corporation fund a scientific exploratory mission to space to find the creators of humankind, known as Engineers. Thanks to the experiments of the android David (Michael Fassbender), especially with the Engineers’ strongest weapon, a strange black liquid, all of the human members of the mission were killed in monstrous ways, while the evolution of the xenomorphs began. This continued in Alien: Covenant, which caught up with David 15 years later.

RELATED: Alien: Covenant Star Michael Fassbender Has Surprising Answer About Franchise Future

Covenant revealed David had traveled to the planet of the Engineers, where he’d released the black liquid and wiped them out. From some, the liquid birthed violent, animalistic creatures – primitive xenomorphs. David used genetic modifications and his own engineering to change these creatures, introducing the egg to face-hugger to chest-burster to xenomorph growth process that we first saw back in 1979. Covenant ended by teasing David using the human colonists on the titular ship as hosts for more aliens, and a sequel could have explained more about David’s actions and could have explored some of Alien’s biggest mysteries.

Alien: Romulus Set Up the Perfect Future for the Alien Franchise

While Ridley Scott might not be returning to fill in the gap between Alien: Covenant and Alien, the franchise might be developing in an even more exciting way. 2024’s Alien: Romulus proved just how fantastic the Alien franchise could be if more standalone projects are produced. Romulus took place in the period between Alien and 1986’s Aliens, but was a completely separate story, only briefly referencing Ellen Ripley’s (Sigourney Weaver) experiences during the original 1979 movie. More Alien movies and TV shows should follow this pattern.

The upcoming Alien: Earth will copy this idea. FX’s TV series will be set two years prior to the events of Alien, so could more directly lead into the original movie, perhaps even marking brief cameo appearances from Ripley, Dallas (Tom Skerritt), Kane (John Hurt), and more. This could fill in some of the gaps that a third Ridley Scott-directed prequel would have addressed, but the series, focusing on Wendy (Sydney Chandler) and a rag-tag group of soldiers, will be telling a standalone spinoff story, as several alien species will be brought to Earth, rather than characters heading into space.

It’s unclear exactly where the Alien franchise will be heading after Alien: Romulus and Alien: Earth, but it’s possible more standalone projects will be produced. There has long been talk of Sigourney Weaver potentially reprising her role of Ellen Ripley, but it seems any plans for a possible Alien 5 have been shelved. Disney announced more Alien movies would be developed following its acquisition of 20th Century Fox in 2019, yet no more are currently confirmed. Despite his comments, we’d still love for Ridley Scott to return to complete his storyline, filling in the gap between Covenant and Alien.

Do you want to see a sequel to Alien: Covenant be developed? Let us know in the comments!

You’ll Never Watch These Alien Movies The Same Way After Reading This Shocking Theory