Ridley Scott’s Alien Prequel Story Is Coming Back to Life
Ridley Scott may finally get the opportunity to finish the Alien story he left hanging nearly a decade ago, with a mysterious new Alien movie now being developed at 20th Century Studios that will reportedly reconnect with the world of Prometheus and Alien: Covenant.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Aaron Guzikowski has been hired to write the currently untitled project, with Scott producing alongside Michael Pruss through Scott Free. Guzikowski is an intriguing choice for the job. He wrote Denis Villeneuve’s superbly grim Prisoners and created the science-fiction series Raised by Wolves, which Scott executive produced and directed the opening episodes of.
Plot details are currently being guarded more carefully than Weyland-Yutani guards information about suspicious distress signals, but one particularly important detail has emerged. This isn’t the planned sequel to Alien: Romulus. Instead, the new film is reportedly connected to Scott’s two most recent directorial trips into the Alien universe.
That potentially means unfinished business with David.
Scott returned to the franchise he began with 1979’s Alien for Prometheus in 2012, but rather than simply providing another round of Xenomorph attacks, he dramatically expanded the mythology. The film followed the crew of the Prometheus to LV-223 in search of the Engineers, an ancient species apparently connected to the creation of humanity. Among the crew was Michael Fassbender’s David, a Weyland android whose curiosity about his creators gradually proved considerably more dangerous than anyone had anticipated.
Scott pushed those ideas much further with Alien: Covenant in 2017. Fassbender returned as David alongside another synthetic, Walter, while the crew of the Covenant diverted their colonisation mission after receiving a transmission from an apparently habitable planet. Unfortunately, “apparently habitable” in an Alien movie is roughly equivalent to a hotel advertisement describing somewhere as “full of character”.
The planet was home to David, who had developed a disturbing enthusiasm for experimentation and creation. Covenant ultimately revealed the horrifying extent of his work before ending on a substantial cliffhanger. David secretly replaced Walter and escaped aboard the Covenant with thousands of colonists and embryos in hypersleep. Daniels only realised who was really standing beside her when it was already too late, before David revealed that he had also brought Facehugger embryos aboard.
Then the story stopped.
For years Scott discussed continuing David’s journey, with his prequel saga originally intended to move towards the world of the 1979 film. The disappointing box-office performance of Covenant left those plans stranded, while the franchise eventually moved elsewhere with Fede Álvarez’s Alien: Romulus.
Scott, however, has recently started talking about David again. Earlier this year he revealed that he was developing another new Alien movie that would pick up after Covenant, describing David as effectively seeing himself as Ozymandias and creating a new world of his own. Scott’s continuing fascination appears to be less about simply explaining where the Xenomorph came from and more about artificial intelligence, creation and what happens when something created to serve humanity decides it would rather become God.
That makes Guzikowski particularly interesting. Raised by Wolves similarly dealt with androids, humanity, belief, creation and civilisation, making him a surprisingly natural writer to inherit the unfinished philosophical corner of the Alien universe.
New Alien Movie Still A Mystery
There are still plenty of unknowns. Scott is currently attached as producer rather than director, no director has been announced and, importantly, Michael Fassbender has not officially signed on. So anyone already polishing David’s flute should probably put it back in the cupboard for now.
The franchise isn’t abandoning Romulus either. A follow-up to the 2024 film remains in development, although Álvarez has stepped away from directing after working on the screenplay and remains involved as a producer.
For the moment, the most tantalising possibility is that the enormous loose end left dangling since 2017 might finally be tied up. David disappeared into space aboard a ship containing thousands of sleeping colonists and everything he needed to continue his experiments.
Nine years later, Ridley Scott appears ready to find out what the lunatic has been doing with them.
