Good news for Prometheus fans, and probably bad news for anyone hoping to see Neill Blomkamp’s Alien 5 any time soon: Ridley Scott has revealed that there will be no less than two sequels to the recently renamed Alien: Covenant.
Speaking at a press conference in Sydney, Scott said, “It’s a very complex story. It’s an evolution of what I first did with Prometheus 1.
“Prometheus 1 was born out of my frustration that on Alien 1 in 1979 – I only did one as I don’t normally do sequels. I was amazed that in the three that followed that no one asked the question: ‘Why the Alien, who made it and why?’ Very basic questions. So I came up with the notion of Prometheus 1, which starts to indicate who might have made it and where it came from.
“So I’m now going to the next one, which is the next evolution directly connected with the first one, which was this Shaw, when he replaced Michael Fassbender in two pieces and we’ll kind of pick it up there and it will evolve. When that’s finished there’ll be another one and then another one, which will gradually drive into the back entrance of the film in 1979.
“So in other words, why was this space jockey there and why did he have an Alien inside him? And those questions will be answered.”
The director half jokingly admitted to having been inspired by Star Wars’ recent example as the reason for the upcoming films (“Star Wars will be a juggernaut. Why do you think I’m doing sequels?”), though it’s interesting at how much of a future he sees in the Prometheus sequels. It may not necessarily be what all the fans want to see, but it’s clearly where his passion is, and if nothing else we’re intrigued to see where that takes us.
Alien: Covenant will be released on 30 May 2017. Keep up with the latest genre news with the new issue of SciFiNow.
