Ridley Scott believes the Alien film series was dead and buried before he made 2012’s Prometheus.
The British filmmaker directed the original Alien, released in 1979, which followed the crew of a commercial spaceship as they encountered a deadly extraterrestrial creature. The sci-fi horror became a blockbuster franchise, spawning three sequels and the Alien vs. Predator crossover films.
In a new interview, Scott claimed he brought the franchise back to life after 1997’s Alien Resurrection performed badly at the box office.
“I did the best one by far,” the director told French outlet Brut, definitively. “Full stop. End of the f***ing story.
“Then they let it die,” he continued. “After [Alien] 4, they killed it. So I sat there thinking, I’m going to bring it back. So I sat down with a very good writer; two guys [and] eventually ended up with Damon Lindelof, and we caught fire and wrote Prometheus.
“So I suddenly bring [it] back where it all began. Then I thought that shook the cage a bit and I did the next one, Alien Covenant. So now it’s up and running.”
Acting as a prequel to Alien, Prometheus comprised a blockbuster cast including Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba, Logan Marshall-Green, and Charlize Theron.
It followed a team of scientists who travel to a distant planet searching for the origins of humanity, alongside David (Fassbender), an android whose mysterious loyalties become increasingly unsettling. A sequel, Alien: Covenant (2017), saw Fassbender reprise the role.
On the review aggregation site, Prometheus sits behind Aliens, Alien and the 2024 interquel Alien: Romulus, with an overall critics’ score of 73 percent.
Alien 2 and 3 were directed by James Cameron and David Fincher, respectively, while Jean-Pierre Jeunet directed the fourth film, Alien Resurrection, starring Sigourney Weaver and Winona Ryder.
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It grossed just $47.8 million in the United States and Canada, making it the lowest-grossing installment of the Alien series in that market and was broadly panned by critics.
Writer Joss Whedon disassociated himself from the project, saying in a 2005 interview: “It wasn’t so much that they’d changed the script — it’s that they just executed it in such a ghastly fashion as to render it almost unwatchable.”
In a 2022 interview with The Independent marking the film’s 25th anniversary, Jeunet said he had recently rewatched Resurrection and was pleasantly surprised.
“I was a little bit concerned to watch my film – maybe I won’t like it?” he said. “No, it was great! I have a lot of shots that I love. For the people who don’t like it, I can say, ‘f*** you!’”
Scott is set to return to the Alien universe with Fassbender for the conclusion to his prequel trilogy.
“Actually, I suddenly went back and got involved,” he told French outlet AlloCiné last week. “The one that just came out [2024’s Alien: Romulus] was OK. I think it needs some help. So, I’ve gone back in.”
Scott continued: “I’ve already got a footprint for the next Alien. We did Prometheus, and then Alien: Covenant. So, I’m picking up where we left off in Covenant with Michael Fassbender, who now thinks he’s Ozymandias.”
The news comes after FX renewed Noah Hawley’s TV spinoff Alien: Earth for a second season.