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In an interview with Forbes in 2020, Scott expressed his doubts that we’d ever get another film set in the prequel timeline: “We went down a route to try and reinvent the wheel with Prometheus and Covenant. Whether or not we go directly back to that is doubtful because Prometheus woke it up very well. But you know, you’re asking fundamental questions like, ‘Has the Alien himself, the facehugger, the chestburster, have they all run out of steam? Do you have to rethink the whole bloody thing and simply use the word to franchise?’ That’s always the fundamental question.”
Whatever you may think about these two films creatively, Alien: Covenant‘s poor box office performance was likely the nail in the coffin for this ambitious expansion. The second movie made only $241 million globally. Compare that to Prometheus‘ $403 million despite not having Alien in its title.
In other words, Covenant is likely the last you’ll see of Michael Fassbender’s android with a god complex.
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Fede Álvarez’s Alien Movie on Hulu
While Covenant seems to have put an end to the franchise’s big-screen ambitions for the time being, there is an upcoming Alien film headed to Hulu, produced by Scott and directed by Don’t Breathe director Fede Álvarez, who also co-wrote the script with Rodo Sayagues. Announced last year and still untitled, the film was pitched to Scott by Álvarez, who left such a big impression that Scott agreed to produce and help get the project greenlit by 20th Century Studios.
The movie is reportedly “unconnected” to past installments, meaning it can go its own way without having to tie into any of the main four films or the more recent prequels. The project stars Cailee Spaeny, Isabela Merced, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Spike Fearn and Aileen Wu as a group of young people trying to survive on a distant space colony being stalked by a xenomorp, according to THR. Shooting began in March in Budapest and is expected to wrap sometime in June (unless the ongoing writers strike has delayed those plans).
Studio head Steve Asbell explained to THR that the decision to stream the movie as opposed to releasing it theatrically was made to give Álvarez more creative freedom to make the movie he wants to make. According to Asbell, releasing a movie theatrically is a higher-stakes endeavor that often requires movies to be altered to appeal to mass audiences, which isn’t necessarily the case for movies released primarily on streaming platforms. On Hulu, “It’s not a film that has to be all things to all people,” Asbell said.
