Ridley Scott is never going to stop making ALIEN movies, at this point that is clear. Despite the fact that PROMETHEUS grew out of a wish to move away from all things facehuggers and xenomorphs, Scott has clearly made peace with the fact that the fans (and the studio) do want those things, and if you can't beat 'em, might as well join 'em.
This could be good news or bad news. If you're our own Jake Dee, it's great news: he gave Scott's ALIEN: COVENANT a 9/10 rating. If you're not a fan of the latest film (my review will be up next week), you'll be yearning for someone new to take over the franchise. After all, each of the first four films were directed by relative newbies to the industry, bringing unique visions to their respective chapters. (Yes, with mixed results when it came to 3 and 4, but even those are failures that can be considered interesting.) At this stage in his career (the man is 79!), Scott should only be doing things he’s passionate about, instead of feeling obligated to keep this train moving if he wants to get off.
But I ramble; maybe Scott really does love this stuff. The point of this article is to tell you that Ridley is indeed moving forward with another ALIEN film – which may or may not be subtitled AWAKENING – and it won't be long before he's calling the shots on set. Scott told IGN UK:
we're writing [a sequel] now, as we speak. I'll be filming that within 14 months."
No word on who is penning the script for the latest movie. COVENANT had at least four writers involved with it, with past Scott collaborator John Logan (GLADIATOR) getting co-screenplay credit.
Additionally, Scott went off on Neill Blomkamp's dead-as-disco ALIEN 5 again, just as he did earlier in the month.
They wanted to do Alien, er, Awakening – Neill Blomkamp. I said fine. I was going to be the producer. If I could have, I would have. Except I do question – why have both [Blomkamp's Alien and Scott's Alien] out there? It seems like shooting your big toe off – it doesn't make sense.
But they didn't go forward with it, Fox, so I just kind of kept out of it. I mean, I'd literally ignited this thing to bring it off the ground again, because it was lying there dormant on a shelf. I had this thing to bring it back up – but here we are."
Ridley has indeed brought it off the ground again, and he's going to pilot it forever forward until we're all in our 70s and he's approximately 120-years-old.
ALIEN: COVENANT opens May 19th. Below you can find a new featurette that focuses directly on Mr. Scott.