It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything concrete about the next instalment in Sir Ridley Scott’s Alien prequel series. And we’re not the only one apparently. In a new interview with Metro (via Screenrant), Alien: Covenant’s Daniels – aka Katherine Waterston – reveals that she is as in the dark about the next one as we are:
“I have no idea. I always feel as though the actors are the last to know. But I also feel as though I could have a great deal to do in that film, or just be rolled out in a body bag.”
I had heard some rumors about where it might go a long time ago that were really interesting to me and my character. But I haven’t heard anything in ages.”
The last solid news we had regarding any future films was when 20th Century Fox CEO Stacey Snider revealed that Fox was waiting on Ridley Scott to find the “right story” for future Alien films. Pre-production on Alien: Covenant 2 was reportedly supposed to start in the Summer of 2017 but was cancelled following the disappointing Box Office results of Alien: Covenant.
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For someone who likes more art house style of movies, the themes in Covenant, such as about the Entry of the Gods into Valhalla, may be appreciated.
It depends on the viewer. (Since I'm a big fan of "2001", what Covenant was trying to do with David is my kind of film.)
But I'm not typical.
Many people complain that Covenant had too bleak of an ending.
Yet Infinity War has a much darker ending compared with Covenant.
* But the most common reaction to a movie is not intellectual but is at a gut level.
Infinity War is a huge box office hit.
Many more people love it compared with Covenant.
You can go to the cinema right this second and buy a ticket to a superhero movie in which the villain wins.
Yeah, when it comes to personal taste with a film (work of art) nothing is objectively perfect or not.
Manos Hands of Fate has 10/10 scores on IMDb.
While 2001 has 1/10 scores on the same site.
To me, for movie ratings all we can do is share our personal reactions.
Still I don't mind Ridley Scott's alien movies. I'd prefer he'd do at least one more.
Still to be honest about it, fat chance if we're going to get another alien movie any time soon. I mean Ii hope there will be one but the odds are not that great.
Scott is a fantastic filmmaker. He attracts great talent, and his movies look beautiful. His vision for the Alien films though, is questionable. As a lifelong Alien fan, I'd rather he not do another.
Especially with him getting in there with Merlin. Not that I'd want Scott to helm another Alien film.
With Fassbender possibly reprising his irresistible David.
Yeah, it seems the deal between Fox and Disney hasn't been cemented yet. But here's the correct thread for the Disney/Comcast discussion:
https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/index.php?topic=59121.375
Possibly, if Universal Pictures (owned by Comcast) continues the franchise. Scott has done a couple of films for Universal so he has the connections. But even if Disney buys the Alien franchise I don't see why they won't hire Scott either.
The latest I've read is that Comcast is trying to outbid Disney for the Fox TV/movie assets.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/05/comcast-preparing-hostile-bid-for-fox-properties-and-control-of-hulu/
Just from an Alien franchise POV, with my speculation, a Comcast takeover of Fox would lead to a better chance of another Alien movie being done br Ridley Scott.
Correct.
And "Prometheus" made 3x its production budget at the box office which is good for an Alien movie after "Aliens".
"Covenant" cost less than $100 million which is very cheap for a high quality space travel science fiction movie.
Imo the franchise just needs to be owned by a studio which is satisfied with a little profit on a new Alien film and isn't expecting a blockbuster.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure the Alien franchise was included in the deal. It's only Fox News Corp that still belongs to Murdoch. It just looks like they may not be using the 20th Century Fox brand anymore which will be a pity if true. Makes more sense to me to keep it and finance and distribute all the stuff that might be inappropriate for the Disney brand under Fox as a separate entity.
It depends on the source whether the Disney / Fox merger will include all the Fox movie division.
Some sources say the merger will include Deadpool (X-Men) and the Alien franchise.
* Ryan Reynolds on being forced to take out a Disney joke from Deadpool 2.
http://www.indiewire.com/2018/05/fox-ryan-reynolds-cut-deadpool-2-joke-disney-1201960099/
* Reynolds talking about how Disney would treat Deadpool;
http://comicbook.com/marvel/2018/05/02/deadpool-disney-fox-merger-ryan-reynolds/
* Ridley Scott on what Disney will do with the Alien franchise;
http://wegotthiscovered.com/movies/ridley-scott-alien-franchise-disney/
I don't have a clue either way. The point is I'm optimistic that Fox will simply change parents from News Corp to Disney, but essentially retain it's overall identity.
At this point I think we are about on the same page (after discussing what Disney did with Dimension & Miramax's Lord of the Rings project).
You are just optimistic about what Disney will do with another Alien film while I'm pessimistic.
Fair enough.
* On an earlier topic in this thread, the ending of Covenant, imo this is reversed.
You reacted in a more pessimistic way, while I'm optimistic.
I'm optimistic about this since the beings to overcome David are hinted in AC.
- Walter; Prometheus showed how hard it is to completely destroy an android. David didn't have much time (to melt Walter like Ash). Even if Walter is in pieces, he can be put back together. And once that happened, he'd try to stop David.
- The Engineers; they are a galactic species. Some Engineer crew is going to find what took place on their homeworld and go after David.
Just my personal reaction which in no way tries to negate how you felt.
Good catch. You are right about Dimension (which was part of the Miramax deal).
- However, Dimension was a small, low budget studio.
But still that Dimension deal supports your point that Disney could let the Fox movie division do what it wants.
We'll see.
* By me;
Because epics/sagas (a big box office multi-film franchise) was very hard to do.
The Black Hole failed at the box office.
With Warner Brothers, Superman 3/4 were failures. So were Batman 3/4.
Marvel was nothing in films before X-Men.
Romancing the Stone didn't lead to a franchise and so on.
* My point was that Disney released films in the sci-fi space travel / superhero genres. They were interested in doing those kinds of films.
At the same time for decades, Disney didn't release a space alien science fiction horror movie similar to the Alien franchise.
He does in the making of doco.
Maybe I am over-complicating this... maybe it is as simple as David completing his biomechanical creations on Origae 6, then engineers come and take his eggs, or David plants eggs on an engineer ship.
I've been trying to fix the size and fossilization discrepancies, but maybe they will just be glossed over in Ridley's version with little to no reasoning.
The end of the Advent short seems so tantalizing too. What is David requesting from the company?
But maybe it's as simple as David notifying them of his creature's existence, telling them to come get specimens by any means necessary, such as sacrificing the Nostromo crew or making Hadley's Hope.
Scott said the SJ was a pilot in a suit, we've seen their home planet. I think that's been put to bed.
Or it could have been Frozen or decayed because of the breach in the hull.
David can fully operate Engineer ships, it's not a stretch to imagine he just put them there.
Of course, because Star Wars was designed and written as a trilogy. The Alien prequels clearly are not.
Originally the eggs were in a separate building, a pyramid. Native to the planet.
And the Engineers were visitors from another planet, who just like the humans checked out the temple and got into trouble.
Because of the budget, they merged the Derelict with the temple.
When you see the Juggernaut taking off in Prometheus, it's pretty big. Making me think we didn't see the whole interiour.
It's possible there are different rooms or floors. Like some big hangar in the belly of the ship.
Or maybe David finds a ship on Origae-6 and changes it to fit his plans.
None of these qualify as super hero epics or space sagas.
Dimension was owned by Disney while they were making Halloween, Children of the Corn and Hellraiser movies.
Not sure why you'd think Disney buying Fox would be any different to Disney buying Pixar, Marvel or LFL.
And I'll see your Black Hole and raise you a Watcher In The Woods.
Yes, Disney tried that a decade or more ago.
- Space Travel science-fiction; The Black Hole and more recently WALL-E through Pixar.
- Superheroes; The Incredibles by Pixar.
* Disney has had a desire for a long time to be successful in these family friendly genres. That is why they bought the MCU and Lucas film.
Disney also wants the Avatar franchise. This is a major reason why they bought Fox's movie division.
Disney wants more huge blockbusters which reach a wide demographic. The Alien franchise is in the smaller niche of science fiction/horror which before a decade ago, Disney had shown little interest.
In the early "Alien" concepts/novelization, the egg chamber seemed to be outside of the derelict ship. In pre-production, there were drawings of a dome which could contain the eggs.
In the final film that idea was set aside and the egg chamber was put on the derelict.
But I really wonder how they're going to explain all these things in the next film, if they want to link it back to Alien. It'll be interersting.
https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi67.tinypic.com%2F2wcnwna.jpg&hash=70778db6f186d63932eb4341e1f748c73f8c7fc3
I mean, look at that:
https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.scified.com%2Ftopics%2F766725168832659.jpg&hash=05cc9c8abf919fce1a8c0c6eb6482e3908c68c0b
That's huuuge. Too big to be a part of the ship, I think.
In addition, the Derelict seems to be designed to transport eggs instead of urns, which is odd now that we know that David created the Alien. Although I can imagine the whole Covenant crew becoming the eggs.
https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi68.tinypic.com%2F2uo74mo.jpg&hash=1adca80167f2ef083f06f9213afabe4f770ec6b7
The size discrepancy between the space jockey and engineers might be a sloppy change made by Ridley, or it might mean that it's a different creature. (It doesn't seem like a stretch to think maybe it's one of the creatures that created the engineers, implying that the engineers model their suits after their gods.)
The decay/fossilization of the space jockey is also an issue, (which I also have an idea on how to fix). Again, is this just Ridley being dumb and lazy or is it something yet to be explained?
We can't know if we never let him finish telling his story.
And if David made the eggs, how in the hell did they end up on an engineer ship? It's not like the answers are glaringly obvious and simple. Alien: Awakening does not feel pre-ordained to me as if we all know exactly what's going to happen.
It's not like I'm excited to see the biomech touches added. That aspect feels like a chore on a checklist at this point, but it's still yet another element that leaves this franchise feeling unfinished.
The other big thing that has yet to be explained is what became of David? Right now, he's just out there somewhere. He's a villain. I want to see him taken down. Until that happens, he's basically somewhere in the shadows for the four original movies.
I value this timeline and I love these movies. I want them to work together and I don't want reboots. Right now, there's a gap that I don't know how to fill and it's so much more complicated than just wondering how one single ship crashed.
And if you're a Star Wars fan, would it honestly not have bothered you at all if the franchise just stopped cold turkey after Episode II?
Well we know the SJ is an Engineer, that was really the big one. We know David made the eggs and even if he didn't the eggs were made/designed by the Engineers as weapons. We know the ship crashes. Getting to how the ship crashed is really the only thing left, which honestly isn't as interesting as who is the SJ and what are the Aliens (both answered).
David adding Biomech to the Alien would have been cool if it went from a Neo to the Big Chap, but going from the Covenant to the Big Chap is like changing the seat covers in your car. I mean Covenant is already the movie where David made the Alien. I really don't think the general movie goer would get it. They'd have to add exposition lines to tell the audience that it wasn't the same Alien he just made already, unless he makes the Queen.
If you pick and choose what you want to believe, ignoring what the movies tell you, and if you ignore what Ridley has been hinting at in interviews, I'm sure the gap is easy to fill. But I'm trying to reconcile everything we've been given.
He's already 80% told it. It's like watching Attack of the Clones then a New Hope, without watching revenge of the Sith. Fill in the blanks.
I mean look at it this way, you could do a sequel that takes place after Alien 3, with David and his experiments. The problem is he/they have shoe horned themselves into this Jockey Story, when honestly I don't really give a rats ass how the ship went down.
I'd be more interested in seeing a movie where David just goes off and does weird things, split off from the Alien timeline, then reboot inside that.
Same. To be honest I couldn't give less a crap about the derelict in LV-426 or the egg silo. I think the most elegant way to handle it was for the final installment in the trilogy to hint at bigger things out there, involving the (original) xenomorph and the engineers. Give me more biomech experiments from the engineers, maybe including a giant one fused to a chair, a lab where they're trying out all sorts of weird shit on themselves and xeno like creatures, where they're trying to reach a perfect design based on something above them. Think of a lot of unwilling engineers subjects being used for creepy biomech fusions, maybe having one with elephantine features. See where I'm going with this? It would be a nice parallel to David's story trajectory, kinda proving he's a bit of a fraud, stealing the perfect design from someone above him, becoming what he really hates in the end, human. It would also leave things open for future movies and wouldn't offend the mystery behind the derelict in the first movie. It's just there, the engineers f**ked up. The end. I don't need that explained.
And in practical terms it doesn't need to be a mega expensive movie, War of the Worlds style like Ridley wanted. Just more gothic, Lovecraftian horror will do.
You have to ask yourself though does that actually achieve anything? From what we've seen both past and present the Alien is basically the Alien in Covenant without tinfoil and toilet tubes stuck to it. Scott blew it too early.
The sequence should have went - Deacon thing, Neomorph thing, 3rd film - final reveal - Alien.
At this point seeing David tweak the Alien that already exists 98% complete in Covenant, do we really need that story? The Alien should have been the last stage, the grand finale, but everybody wet the bed.