Ridley Scott could make another four Alien films if 'Alien: Covenant' does well

In space, no-one can hear you scream… over the sounds of all the additional Alien movies in various stages of production. Sir Ridley Scott, who’s only just finished making the sixth installment in the franchise, the forthcoming  Alien: Covenant, has said that is the new film does well, he’d be up for directing, like, four more Alien films.

The director, who is 79 and so probably wants to make them fairly quickly, was discussing the future of the franchise as part of the publicity tour for the new film, a sequel to 2012’s Prometheus, which comes out on May 19, and stars Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston and James Franco. 

"There will be another one before we kind of literally and logically, clockwise, back into the rear back head of [the original] Alien," he told Fandango, before revealing that the next film in the sequence would be called Awakening. 

"It will go Prometheus, Awakening, Covenant... fairly integral where this colonization ship is on the way," he said.

At that point, Waterston apparently cut in, saying: "You're giving away too much! But yes, there will be more after this. I think that was the question."

Unabashed, Scott, who directed the first movie in the series back in 1979, continued: “If this is successful, and then the next one, and then there will definitely be three more."

There are currently four Alien films: Alien, Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection, as well as Prometheus. Scott’s revelation indicates that the full Alien story would comprise two trilogies and the original Tetralogy. 

Matters of continuity in the Alien universe are further complicated by the existence of the two Alien vs Predator films, which potentially tie it both to them and to the three Predator movies, a fourth of which is filming even now. 

To save you the pain of ever having to witness the horrors of Alien’s online fandom, we ventured down the rabbit hole ourselves. We found two things: a lot of badly spelled forum rants, and a total lack of consensus as to whether the crossovers are canonical.

There’s an alien skull shown in a predator trophy cabinet in Predator 2, and there are billionaire characters called Weyland in both Alien and AvP, though they have different first names. Depending on which angry screed you read, this is either a simple continuity error or proof positive that they’re not remotely connected. What’s most likely is that 20th Century Fox, which owns the franchises, is hedging its bets; the AvP movies are not highly regarded, and neither Scott nor Sigourney Weaver have nice things to say about them. 

Still, with fresh movies in production, both Alien and Predator franchises are doing better than another sci-fi blockbuster staple of the ‘80s and ‘90s. According to a report in the New York Daily News, production on Terminator 6 has probably been scrapped.