Game Over Man!?

[Wysps]

and Covenant barely made money because they stuck Alien on the label and forced Ridley to put a alien in it.

I don't know, but I'd guess that the Alien hurt Covenant more than it helped, and that its absence was a big factor in the success of Prometheus. I never see anyone outside the fandom getting excited over another Alien or Predator movie. The brand seems worn out to me.

Which might be the reason why they're trying to inject ancient space astronaut and superhero type elements into these new movies. It might be a conscious bid to invite non-fans or apathetic movie goers to the franchise. Because you do have a point - it seems like the people that are truly excited at this point are those within the fandom. We need more people 

Kind of reassuring - those outside of the fandom might not care as much about janky plot points and be solely interested in the action/violence, which apparently is an incredible asset to the movie.

Still think a brief respit for the series is in order. A momentary period to hit the drawing board.

[Samhain13]

The movies don't seem to be working in these franchises, its just not doing it anymore, both for fans and the general audience. Sure there are a few things everyone can enjoy in any of the movies but overall the sucess of the franchises decreased way too much. So much they are going desperate and resorting to things unrelated to the genre and main focus on what each franchise is suppose to be about like Wysps said.

The series should use its expanded universe as a way to continue, improve and bring back the audience's interest. The novels reception must have been pretty good over the last years, otherwise they wouldn't kept doing so many novels lately. On the games ACM was what it was, but AVP2010 became Sega's fastest on selling title on 2010.

Isolation gained a cult status as it became a lone old school hardcore survival horror gem in the age of dlc and pay-to-win gaming, and was praised on how well it captured ALIEN's atmosphere. IGN trashed the game on how hard it was in its review then made a video pretty much apologizing due to the gamers' backlash over that. The game got really popular on youtube as the jump scary factor made a lot of people do Let's Play.

The series can benefit a lot from a new game for the new console generation. The interest on the moveis has decreased but not on the other stuff.

[PsyKore]

The failure, I think, comes from the studio over-reaching, expecting bigger amounts of money from a niche, horror-based franchise that cannot compete against other franchises in the current market. There's nothing intrinsically bad about Prometheus or Covenant, most people liked them (don't believe the personally offended people on the internet that bag these movies), but this franchise just doesn't pull the numbers required that would make them hugely "successful," i.e. wading in cash.

The latest 'Iron Man Pred Tech suit' thingy from The Predator really shows a desperate attempt by Fox to appeal to wider audience, but I think this is the wrong way of doing it.

I think they really have no choice but to produce lower budgeted and more intimate movies, as difficult as that might be, and then profit from that. Another avenue that would benefit them would be a Netflix series of some sort, showing side-quels, or even if it was to have a show based on something from the EU.