Ridley Scott Hopeful For More ‘Alien’ Movies At Disney

Although production of future Alien movies were put on hold at Twentieth Century Fox, Ridley Scott is hopeful that he can keep working on them at Disney.

Alien Covenant

Alien: Covenant might have been a financial disappointment for the series, but it didn’t stop Ridley Scott from pursuing plans for another movie — it did, however, give Twentieth Century Fox pause, causing the sequel (and the franchise as a whole) to be put on hold. That being said, Scott is confident that the series will go forward under new management at Disney.

Talking with Digital Spy, Scott stated that following announcement of Disney’s purchase of 21st Century Fox, he’s hopeful that the company will make more movies of the franchise he started back in 1978:

“It looks to me that the Fox deal is certainly going to go ahead with Disney, and I’ve been with Fox for a number years now. I’m hoping I’ll still probably be there so whether or not they go ahead with such a dark subject, being Disney, as aliens remains to be seen. I think they should because I think, when people have a hard and fast franchise which has ongoing interest, it’s crazy not to do something with it.”

Disney obviously didn’t buy a bunch of IP from Fox for the sole purpose of sitting on it and doing nothing, and especially not considering that they’ll be able to double or even triple their annual output of films by having so many more resources to use. The R-rated frontier is one that Disney hasn’t explored for rather obvious reasons, but that looks to be changing with their purchase of 21st Century Fox: for instance, Disney CEO Bob Iger stated that he wants to keep future Deadpool movies R-rated, which would represent a clear change in approach to how Disney has operated since splitting up with Miramax. I think it’s incredibly likely that Disney will use a Twentieth Century label for movies that don’t fit the company’s family-friendly image, and Alien would be at the forefront of that, so Scott shouldn’t be worried. Indeed, he even anticipates that a Fox-based label will be used for certain films:

“Of all the studios they’re far ahead of their game for having a prepared, thought through demographic for the kind of films they’re making – for who they’re making them for. That’s why they’re so successful. And they draw the line at anything that crosses PG-13. [If] they find that they’re so successful with that that they want to cross the line and do something a little darker, and if they do that, do they want to do that under Disney or do they want to do that under the Fox banner? I think there’s a business plan afoot definitely.”

But there’s an interesting question to consider with regard to how the franchise continues: if Disney goes forward with future Alien movies, do they continue with Scott’s planned tetralogy of Alien prequels (which include Prometheus and Alien: Covenant), do they revisit Neill Blomkamp’s idea for an Aliens sequel that ignores the unpopular sequels Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection, do they do both concurrently, or do they go with a new plan altogether? Time will tell, but for now, we can expect that this definitely isn’t the last we’ve seen of the Xenomorphs.

Alien: Covenant is available on home video and streaming. 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: Digital Spy