Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant sequel may not happen

Last Updated on July 21, 2021

In recent months, director Ridley Scott has been sharing details on how he plans to continue the ALIEN prequel story he began with PROMETHEUS and continued with this year's ALIEN: COVENANT. He has said that he wants to move the franchise away from the xenomorph aliens as the story goes on (despite the fact that the timeline is building toward catching up with the original ALIEN), with the focus of the next film being on AI and the evil android David (Michael Fassbender), 

the world that the AI might create as a leader if he finds himself onto a new planet."

Scott has also said that Katherine Waterston and Danny McBride's COVENANT characters Daniels and Tennessee would return for the follow-up. If it ever happens.

The director has seemed pretty confident that he's going to be able to make that film, but it hasn't officially been given a greenlight by Fox. During an interview with The Toronto Sun, Scott said he 

would like to (to make the movie); they’re crazy if they don’t. David is a fantastic villain. I love what (Michael Fassbender) did in Covenant. But it’s f—ing hard, dude. We lifted ALIEN out of a ditch and made PROMETHEUS."

Apparently Fox had considered scheduling a summer 2018 start date for the sequel, but that hasn't happened. Now a rumor has arisen online, courtesy of a tipster who claims to have worked on ALIEN: COVENANT, that 

The sequel to COVENANT was originally due to start preproduction (in September 2017) in Sydney. After (COVENANT's) box office results filming was cancelled, and a warehouse storage unit full of stuff was auctioned off a few months ago. So the original plan of pumping out another quickly has definitely changed with no immediate plans for anything."

I'm very ambivalent about the idea of the sequel being put on hold, or flat-out cancelled. I really have no interest in the story Scott is trying to tell with these prequel films, but COVENANT ended on such a cliffhanger that I think he should be able to finish the story with one more movie.

Scott's desire to keep telling the story could be complicated by the fact that Fox has been acquired by Disney since the release of COVENANT, and it remains to be seen how that will affect plans for Fox franchises. As that situation is worked out, we'll keep you updated on anything that happens in the ALIEN world.