The Alien Queen is not dead yet

Director Ridley Scott has said the Alien franchise is set to “re-evolve”. Xenomorph expert Ian Nathan considers four directions it could take

ALIEN: BACK INTO THE RIDLEYVERSE

Development on the next prequel has been halted, but not abandoned. “I’m in tune with where ‘Covenant 2’ would go,” Ridley Scott maintained in 2017. ‘Alien: Awakening’ was to refocus on the Engineers still at large, inventing planets like giant, bald Ridley Scotts. Engineers Vs. Fassbender would ensue; Scott’s new direction will likely bring The Company, aka Weyland-yutani, centre stage. Less as Peter Weyland’s megalomaniac plaything than a corporation of Burkes running a biological-warfare division.

ALIEN: RESET

Disney, which is now in possession of the franchise, might equally see this as a chance to go back to basics, back to the B-movie DNA that sustained Alien and Aliens. Which was the intention of Neill Blomkamp — to literally hit the reset button in the wake of Aliens, with Ripley, Newt and Hicks intact. James Cameron, while promoting Alita: Battle Angel, hinted at discussions with Disney about reviving Blomkamp’s reboot; producer Walter Hill has even sent Sigourney Weaver a 50-page treatment, with the tagline: “In space, no one can hear you dream.” However, speaking to Empire last month, Weaver seemed sceptical about returning to Ripley.

ALIEN: RESUSCITATED

There is a pantheon of unmade Alien scripts Disney inherited with Fox. One of these might, with a little nursing, offer up a vivid approach. Is there mileage, yet, in Vincent Ward’s monkish wooden planet (flipped into a prison world in Alien3), or Joss Whedon’s Earth-centric ‘Alien: Revelation’, or British screenwriter Stuart Hazeldine’s ‘Alien: Earthbound’, featuring the xenomorph-infested Antarctica Station (a reference to Alien) tethered to Earth? A recent novel, Aliens: Phalanx by Scott Sigler, pitches xenomorphs against medieval knights; that just happens to be two of Scott’s favourite jingles combined.

ALIEN: THE SERIES

The good money remains on the Alien heading to television. With R-rated body horror not conducive to Disney+ family values, it would be more likely to appear on Hulu (in which Disney has a 60 per cent stake). One report claims Scott has been part of discussions over an anthology format, unveiling a different aspect of the Alien universe each season, including a return to LV-426, with new Colonists and new Marines, the Aliens having survived being nuked from space.