Alien: Covenantis nearly here, and directorRidley Scottis characteristically chatting up a storm. The prolific filmmaker is simultaneously releasingAlien: Covenantand prepping his next film, the crime dramaAll the Money in the World, to start shooting, but he’salsogiving an update on his plans with theAlienfranchise.
Scott returned to the sci-fi realm withPrometheusin 2012, but after that moved on to films likeThe CounselorandExodus: Gods and Kings. FilmmakerNeill Blomkamp, meanwhile, started developing his own sequel to theAlienfranchise, which then spurred Scott to move more quickly on the long-promisedPrometheussequel which becameAlien: Covenant. During the development ofCovenant, Scott revealed that he planned on makingas many as four additionalAlienmovies. Now, in an interview withYahoo! UK, the director is changing his tune:
“I don’t know. [I’ll make] maybe two more [films], or maybe one more, I don’t know.”
“I don’t know” is a perfectly acceptable answer at this point, especially given that the 79-year-old Scott plans on moving directly into the thrillerThe CartelafterAll the Money in the World, and somehow also plans on rolling cameras on theAlien: Covenantsequel within the next 14 months, which hasJohn Logan(Skyfall) on scripting duties:
“I’ll probably be filming it within a year,” Scott says about the follow up toCovenant. “It’ll be out within a year and nine months. It’s weird when you’re writing, doing, planning, thinking about franchises, it’s amazing how it opens up and starts to evolve.”
Scott also did a bit of reflecting in the Yahoo interview, admitting he was taken aback when audiences weren’t too thrilled with his take onPrometheus:
“It went straight up there, and we discovered from it that [the fans] were really frustrated. They wanted to see more of the original [monster] and I thought he was definitely cooked, with an orange in his mouth. So I thought: ‘Wow, OK, I’m wrong’… The fans, in a funny kind of way – they’re not the final word – but they are the reflection of your doubts about something, and then you realize ‘I was wrong’ or ‘I was right’. I think that’s where it comes in. I think you’re not sensible if you don’t actually take [the fans’ reaction] into account.”
As someone who likedPrometheusmore than most I can attest the xenomorph was the least interesting thing about it, so it’s a bit of a bummer to hear that Scott thinks that was one of the film’s major issues (and not, you know, incredibly dumb characters). I suppose we’ll see whenAlien: Covenanthits theaters, and about which our own Haleigh Foutch had mixed feelings in her review.
