With Gladiator 2 not far off the horizon, Sir Ridley Scott continues to appear in the film press, following his recent profile in The Hollywood Reporter where he briefly mentioned developing a new Alien film (we still think this is just the recently announced Alien Romulus sequel).
Talking once again to The Hollywood Reporter, Scott also talked about Noah Hawley’s upcoming series Alien: Earth, as well as answering a question on the possibility of the USCSS Covenant meeting up with Alien Romulus’s survivors. Though he didn’t really elaborate (or answer the question), Scott did say he thought it would be easier to spin a story from the end of Covenant:
People keep wondering if there will be a sequel to Covenant. But it occurred to me after watching Romulus that the next movie could be both. Both films ended with ships headed to a planet we’ve never been to. There’s no reason those characters couldn’t end up in the same place.
Covenant is the best one [for a sequel] because it leaves the girl in the [cryo pod] and [Michael Fassbender’s killer android] David has alien eggs and 2,000 colonists hanging around. It’s a perfect beginning.
Scott also lamented his lack of ownership over the Alien franchise, something he’s previously expressed his disappointment in.
You also said earlier you regret not getting an ownership stake in the IP of the Alien and Blade Runner franchises — unlike how Cameron and Spielberg have done with some of their work.
I made Alien and Blade Runner, but then I moved on. I should have locked them up — as Spielberg would have with Jurassic Park, and everything he does, and Cameron has done. Studios paid for them, but there’s a way of locking yourself into [ownership] during the negotiation. I watched Alien2, 3 and 4 and realized, “Oh, you just ran that firmly into the ground.” Then I went back to [former 20th Century Fox chief Tom Rothman] and said, “Listen, there’s a way out. We should resurrect Alien with Prometheus.” They made half a billion dollars — by now probably a billion with all the resales. It’s not what happens at the box office, it’s what happens after the box office. Then I went back with Alien: Covenant, and that was big and ambitious and maybe too intellectual to play as well. It still did $250 million, and I still stupidly didn’t lock it up. I don’t blame me, because I’m busy. I blame a couple other people, which is why we parted company.
Sir Ridley Scott directs Big Chap stunt performer Eddie Powell on the set of Alien.
Speaking on the upcoming Alien Earth and Blade Runner 2099, Scott also discussed the influence he’s had on the franchises.
You also have TV shows based on your movies coming out now (with Amazon’s Blade Runner 2099 from Silka Luisa and FX’s Alien: Earth from Noah Hawley). How do you feel about your big cinematic properties now being interpreted by others for the small screen?
I’ve created the pace visually for a while. I know exactly what I’ve done and how it has been influential, because I keep seeing it — “Oh, there’s me … there’s me…” It was annoying initially, but now it’s amusing and healthy. Like [Hawley] has gone down that route and definitely respected the original Alien. And from that, I can’t hope for anything more other than to keep it alive. I don’t care what the platform is. I’m keen to go home and watch it. All these subjects are embalmed forever and that’s very healthy.
Be sure to head on over to The Hollywood Reporter to check out the entire interview where Sir Ridley Scott discusses his upcoming Gladiator sequel, his history and some more bits on the Alien franchise.
Keep your browsers locked on Alien vs. Predator Galaxy for the latest Alien Earth and Alien Romulus news! You can follow us on Facebook, X, Instagram and YouTube to get the latest on your social media walls. You can also join in with fellow Alien and Predator fans on our forums.
Dark Star ain't no masterpiece common lol
lol
Imagine thinking that Ridley is getting another film
Yeah...that ain't happening
💀
Yeah, we need sources for that. People are too obsesed with seeing a deeper hidden meaning where there isn't any. A number of people here have been tracking the development of Covenant for quite closely and I've never heard of that. Quite the opposite in fact, I'm pretty sure Ridley in an interview was talking how the twist from Prometheus was that the Engineers didn't create the Alien, David did.
Here is the proof:
https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/index.php?topic=57642.0
People need to stop spreading disinformation. Ridley confirmed that David created the first, original Alien. He never suggested anything otherwise. Believing otherwise is just fooling yourselves into believing what you want to believe, not because it's true. That damn novelization is just the writer adding a bunch of stuff that they thought would make the film better. It is not mostly made up of older script stuff. While that is there, most of the changes are from A. D. Foster himself, as he confirmed it. He has a history of doing that to films he doesn't like, like he tried to change a bunch of stuff for the Alien 3 novelization.
"David recreating the Alien" originated in A. D. Foster's mind, overruling Scott's intent in the film. Scott cares for nothing other than his films, so of course he didn't check or approve the novelization, he certainly doesn't care about it. In his head, at the time, Scott imagined David to be the Grand Daddy of the of the Alien. A. D. Foster put his own thing. Fox either didn't know (they've been horrible in proof reading their novels) or left that in just in case so they could pivot to that later if the Daddy David story wasn't popular.
Some expanded universe stuff is subtly trying out that direction, while things like Alex White's novels were more going with Scott's direction. We'll see what the show does, if it dares touch upon that question at all.
I think we need to create a quick reference page for that question, titled something like: "No, David didn't recreate the Alien", or: "Yes, David is the true creator of all of the Aliens per Ridley Scott as of 2017"
Things can hopefully change, but people need to know the true history, what Scott originally imagined and what Covenant is really saying, instead of imagining things that aren't there.
Here is the interview itself:
https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-empire-film-podcast-32729/episodes/alien-covenant-spoiler-special-17515349
Listen from 27:00 to 27:40. He lays it all out there, in black and white. He does his rambling thing from time to time which is usual for him, but he says everything you need to know there. At the start, from 8:20, he says the Engineers created the Pathogen to wipe out their misbehaving children. The Engineers are gardeners of space and are "dropping evolution into the DNA" of worlds they deem appropriate. We were killing each other so we had to go. A plague to wipe us out and for it to spread and make sure we're dead. Kills the meat, meaning only plants survive which is kinda strange. He also kinda implies he doesn't consider the Queen part of his canon. Even though we had that Advent short of David in the special features, that was clearly done by other people and Scott didn't know of it, or cared.
So yeah, Scott does and says one thing, but multiple people around him try to do the opposite with special feature shorts and novelizations etc. If he gets to do his own thing again with a prequal sequel, he will ignore everything around him and do what's on his mind at the time, which will probably be more of Daddy David.
I'd be curious to see those quotes. Other than the novelization.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQkUGxH8bLcdTLLAr_EpW4gGp_rIBGlDIjYeA&s
Would you put your entire hand in the Queen's egg sac?
lol
You pretty much get 65-70% of the capability and traits of the full Xenomorph so think it's fair to say in proportion the species if you could call it that has earlier iterations,creators and fundamental origin sure.
But the xenomorphs of the OT I think it's clearly implied the direction of the story was & design of 'the perfect organism' being the hand of David rather than a recreation.
Same, some scenes were just awesome plus Noomi Rapace and Fassbender are great. I also love the play on religion and god and our creators while cleverly telling an new Alien story within the franchise.
It introduced the downfall of the Alien as a horror from the black depth of space. Turned into science project of hobbyistic android. And the queen, that beautiful beast, came out of the experiments with some random woman. Pale bodybuilders seeded life on earth etc.... It's all about humans, humans, humans and again, humans. Prometheus and Covenant should never have been made. To me only the first three movies are cannon.
I agree with you, no matter what is said about it and its shortcomings - I am very glad Prometheus was made.
Plus, it directly led to me getting Covenant.
But this expression refers to that too.
it means.
When they resurrected the Alien saga with Prometheus, he should have signed the rights.
The full quote that this now-deleted Tweet was misreporting as being about Prometheus as a film is most certainly about the rights. You can read it for yourself with proper context here:
https://deadline.com/2024/11/gladiator-2-ridley-scott-interview-1236175248/
Let's look at the full quote
Because he wasn't talking about the rights
He was specifically talking about Prometheus
"I saw this bloody film(alien 1979) that they keep playing every night somewhere on the globe, on all the platforms. There's life in the best, yet. That's why I sat down with the great writer [Damon] Lindelof, and we reconstructed a resurrection of the era, with Prometheus, and how it evolved from Alien. But we were asleep at the wheel. My advisors, who frankly no longer are with me, were asleep at the wheel, certainly. And I partly blame myself, except I was busy making other films. And so it was let go and it shouldn't have been. When you resurrect, you better put your nail into the wall."
Scott (and Cameron in Aliens) is key to the quality.
Without Scott Alien79 would be just another B movie. Like other O'Bannon movies ( good movies yes but is differente quality like Dark Star of Carpenter of his fantastic The Return of the Living Dead BUT Scott elevate the material that received to be something more than another B-series , is other sport ).
Scott shot three masterpieces in a row (one before and one after Alien).
With three different teams. It's not a coincidence.
At that time Scott was a genius, he was the differential factor that together with three different teams gave three masterpieces.
The three teams were good yes but Scott was their leader/director.
Giger created the Alien with O'Bannon in script (script in other hands , director, maybe is a tacky B-movie ) but Scott made a masterpiece.
Appreciate the attempt at clarity, as every single person quoting or responding to that tweet is taking it in a completely different way or misconstruing that he regrets Prometheus all of a sudden.
This quote has been twisted. Ridley isn't referring to the execution of Prometheus itself here. He's referring to the situation where, while making Prometheus, him retaining the rights to the Alien brand slipped through his fingers yet again.
This is an aggregated quote in the first place, but genuinely curious in what context or who Ridley is waffling about. We've had about a decade of full Prometheus embrace by Ridley with no signs otherwise
That being said, Fede's take on it works just fine for me.
You could argue a purism to things but
Prometheus was also trying to pitch itself as in the Alien universe but not an alien film initially so felt licence to expand the aesthetics and tech perhaps.
If it had gone the other route with a faithfulness to original tech aesthetic, it was vulnerable to being perceived as just homage or reductive retread
In the world of Alien, despite the recent explanation re: Wealth & resources(Good enough for me) by Fede, there is room in the timeline for there having been a cataclysmic war, event, depriving of a resource that sets back humanity and its technology and the resulting tech & its aesthetic in Alien 1
That being said – he's also the director, and everyone and everything coming together in the fashion that it did and resulting in the film that we have today is a direct result of the calls that he made and the way he handled the production.
It was a team effort, as it always is.
I honestly think he is partly so envious that omnipotent James Cameron was able to conjure up a matching piece of work, mostly from his own pen and hands that he wants to nullify that direction by constantly forcing that black goo and the mythos that comes with it to the new titles. I find it distasteful to introduce tech that surpasses the tech in Aliens before the timeline of Aliens just so to make it look somewhat more inferior. Alien is sound in its portray and use of technology but Aliens is superior; it is laden with it, feels natural and they are so cleverly embedded into the story as plot devices as well. Looking at the timeline we are now supposed to believe that there was much better technology available prior to it. I thought that was going to be Prometheus only, as an exception, because of Charles Weyland's access and power. Now that high tech is everywhere. It just again messes up, waters down the whole cohesiveness of the universe and I can't shake the feeling that it's because of Aliens' technlogical provess annoys Scott somewhere deep inside.
I think his ambition to make the follow up to Romulus and Covenant be Aliens with more Aliens and better tech. But will not succeed. Its because while sir Ridley Scott treats movies like a big canvas, more of a medium about beautiful imagery than the interplay between the characters in that said environment. That is why his characters in the Alien universe are disposable puppets that drive the story forward to show more imagery whereas Cameron's Aliens is still more about the characters and that makes it stand through the test of time.
I think there are also noticeable parallels in the production of both Alien and Aliens, how they almost portray the struggles of making the films. Ridley broke his finger, O'Bannon was treated as a quirky, dismissable reject etc. The who-hates-who interplay and yet people standing strong behind their vision is somehow carried to the screen in Alien, where even in a group the loneliness and incompatibility of these individuals can be felt and it adds to the story. Similarly Aliens seems almost to be a depiction of the US Colonial actors against the determined, unionized British film crew. There's something akin to the forming of a diamond amidst terrible pressures in both films, the personal struggles and sufffering that made these both films great. They were made with blood.
The more money is thrown at an Alien movie the worse it gets, people get off easy, everyone gets paid well, the movies come out as mediocre and everyone watches them in the hopes that they will be even remotely as good as the originals. They wont be. And its funny how sir Ridley Scott wants to dive deeper into the world of AI thematic in the next installment, but possibly and ultimately ends up feeding the visual imagery to an AI so that people in a decade can synthesize better Alien films with it.
Sir Ridley Scott has taken away the alien from Alien by
They sound accurate, I agree
I'm guessing (hoping) Q2, Spring/early Summer for Earth, with the animated Predator film presumably coming late Summer to get it out a few months before Badlands' November release.
Seems unlikely, although wouldn't that push it towards the first half of the year? That also feels "soon".
If it's not released within the first half of the year, I'm rioting.
Well I was wrong lol.
I'm doubtful.
Ridley Scott is oddly self-aware