Filmmaking auteur Ridley Scott has had a very busy 2015 with the success of The Martian. Yet when he sat down on Thursday at the AFI Film Festival with Scott Foundas for an hour long conversation that chronicled the career of the acclaimed director, the subject inevitably turned to Alien. This development is not at all shocking because the 1979 horror classic launched Scott’s career — and a whole series of xenomorph sequels.
Scott admitted that he wants to take sole ownership of the Alien franchise, which explains the infinite hold that dropped on Neil Blomkamp’s Alien film. The District 9 director’s project may never see the light of the day. Scott returned to the Alien franchise with Prometheus, and the sequel of that film was said to be called Alien: Paradise Lost. This would be a further connection to the original Alien. However, Ridley has put the kibosh on that title with another one.
“I was going to be doing what will be called Alien: Covenant, which starts shooting next February,” Scott told Foundas before going into a story about the genesis of The Martian, and how that film came to be through the assistance of Drew Goddard’s screenplay.
As of right now, Scott intends to be fully entrenched in the Alien universe for many years and films to come. Alien: Covenant is tentatively ready for a May 30, 2017 release. How the director intends to connect the Engineers and their story to what we see in the original Alien is still unknown. Yet we do know that the title for this project is very likely subject to change at a drop of Scott’s hat.
(Via The Playlist)
