Ridley Scott thought the series had run out of steam with Alien: Resurrection.
The Alien franchise marks the rare occasion in which many fans agree that the first two entries are equally as effective as one another, yet the third and fourth entries saw a stronger decline in reception by both fans and critics. Even director of the original Alien Ridley Scott thought that the concept had come to an end with the release of Resurrection, despite thinking the franchise deserved to be as popular as Star Wars or Star Trek. Scott’s collaborations with Damon Lindelof ignited more interest in the concept, which resulted in Scott’s 2012 film Prometheus. Just earlier this summer, the critical and financial success of Alien: Romulus helped confirm Scott’s opinion about there being a lot of untapped potential for the concept.
“I think, wrongly, on Alien I thought the old beast had worn out. Because when we did the first [set of films], it was me, Jim [Cameron], David [Fincher], and the French guy [Jean-Pierre Jeunet] — there were four. They wore out. The beast wore out,” Scott explained to Total Film, per GamesRadar. “And, in a funny kind of way, I found the beast partly by accident. Without that alien, you wouldn’t have ever had this film. With all the great casting in the world, when you have a film where it’s about being locked in with a creature — you better have the creature right. It can’t be The Creature from the Black Lagoon. And so many of these things are terrible. And it hangs on what that monster is, and also how you play with it when mostly less is always better for tension. And it’s easier to have a film that’s blood and gore with no tension. I tried to avoid that. And so it died.”
He continued, “And I sat and thought, ‘What a pity, because this is a huge franchise — maybe biggest apart from Star Wars and Star Trek ever — with legs.’ Because there’s still a long way to go with it. So I sat down with Damon Lindelof, actually. We sat down at a table, and spun a wheel to see: where could we go? And it all began with Prometheus.”
Despite the excitement surrounding Scott’s return to the franchise he helped create, Prometheus didn’t quite live up to the effectiveness of the first two entries in the franchise, and neither did his follow-up Alien: Covenant. These prequels were meant to lead right into the events of Alien, with Scott claiming he had at least one more sequel in mind to directly connect to Alien, yet the underwhelming critical and commercial reception of Prometheus and Covenant stifled those plans.
Luckily, Alien: Romulus has proven to be a hit with audiences and critics, so while the franchise is confirmed to be expanding into the TV series Alien: Earth next year, Romulus likely paved the way for more big-screen entries into the franchise to be developed.
Stay tuned for updates on the future of the Alien franchise.
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