Alien: Covenant hasn’t even released yet and Ridley Scott is already talking about more Alien films…
Originally planned as a sequel to Prometheus, Covenant was re-branded to an Alien film presumably for marketing purposes, though it’s not entirely clear how much the story has evolved along the way since Prometheus 2 was first conceptualised.
Now, with Covenant about to be released on screens (May 18th), Scott has stated that he has plans to move the franchise along with the next film titled Alien: Awakening, which will be firmly set between Prometheus and Alien: Covenant.
This would effectively complete a trilogy that began with Prometheus, but seems to be showing us the third chapter (Covenant) before delivering the middle chapter (Awakening).
Further to that confusing update, Scott has also stated that if the next two films are successful, he has an entirely new trilogy of Alien films planed, all of which will take place before the original Alien. So while his plan seems to be eventually to roll into that franchise starting point, there appears to be no hurry to get there.
That’s a lot of Alien films and whether we need that many pre-Alien setup films is debatable. Unfortunately all of this also seems to imply that the much talked about Neill Blomkamp Alien film which would reboot the franchise from Alien 3 onwards (with Ripley and Hicks back in the fold no less), isn’t going to happen anytime soon, if at all.
