Ridley Scott Discusses A Deleted ‘Alien: Covenant’ Scene Set On Earth

Alien: Covenant director Ridley Scott reveals that the movie originally had a scene that took place on Earth, but it was cut after being deemed unnecessary.

Alien Covenant Cast First Film
While what happens on Earth is important to the Alien franchise, we rarely get to see what it looks like in the movies (and no, those Earth-set Alien Versus Predator cash-grabs don’t count). Ridley Scott reveals that there was originally going to be a scene where we got a look at what our world looked like in the distant future of Alien: Covenant, but it got removed after he determined that the movie didn’t need it.

Scott spoke with Yahoo Movies on a spoiler-filled discussion of the movie. One part of the discussion that didn’t spoil anything about the movie was that James Franco’s cameo role was originally slightly larger than it is in the final film, as he appeared opposite to Katherine Waterston’s character in a scene where he would talk to her about their future as space colonists:

“I did one more scene which was [James Franco’s Branson] in an apartment, a futuristic apartment in New York with Daniels, who is his wife, played by Katherine [Waterston]… And we see this couple discussing a future. He says ‘we’ll build this cabin on the lake in this particular place’, and they’ve identified where they’re going to go. But the journey will be long and dangerous. Dangerous because you’re asleep and who knows what happens? …That was in there, but I discovered we don’t need it.”

Earth was previously shown in Prometheus in the form of a few ancient ruins that future members of the doomed exposition came across, as well a few flashback scenes on the Prometheus itself and a prologue featuring an Engineer that may or may not be set in Earth’s distant past. A rare trailer for Alien 3 also teased that Xenomorphs would visit Earth, but this idea was scrapped during that film’s notoriously troubled production. Given that the franchise still has quite a bit of life left in it (as evidenced by the movie’s good start at the international box office), maybe we’ll get a good look at the Weyland-Yutani-dominated Earth yet.

Alien: Covenant arrives on May 19, 2017. The movie’s cast includes Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Guy Pearce, Danny McBride, Demián Bichir, Carmen Ejogo, Amy Seimetz, Jussie Smollett, Callie Hernandez, Nathaniel Dean, Alexander England, Benjamin Rigby, and James Franco.

Source: Yahoo Movies!