Speaking with us at the press junket for Taboo which airs this weekend on BBC One, director Ridley Scott opened up about what we can expect in Alien: Covenant and why he returned to the franchise he launched back in 1979.
“When I saw Alien finally succumb after four films, which was a good run, then they also did Alien vs. Predator, after which I thought, ‘Uh-oh, that’s it’ – then I waited a couple of years, I went back and decided to resurrect it,” he said. “No-one actually asked where [the aliens] came from in the three subsequent movies, which is kind of ridiculous. That’s why good writers are good writers, they’ll ask a basic question like that and make that into a scenario.”
Scott wanted to go back and really explore the origins of the xenomorphs, adding that, “We did Prometheus – that heaved it off the ground, and Covenant is a follow-through to Prometheus. We now know who created this, and why, and the next one’s a joining up of the storyline.” Scott told us that the story of Alien: Covenant “touches on mortality, immortality and the real question of who created us and why.”
Scott then went on to reveal that both Prometheus and Covenant are inspired by his personal beliefs about where we came from: “We’re not just a random biological accident, For you and I to be sitting here right now [by accident] would take trillions of correct decisions made randomly by nature, which of course is ridiculous. I think there’s some kind of decision being made. I believe in a higher force – if we want to call it God, then it’s God.”
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Ridley Scott returns to the universe he created in ALIEN with ALIEN: COVENANT, the second chapter in a prequel trilogy that began with PROMETHEUS — and connects directly to Scott’s 1979 seminal work of science fiction. Bound for a remote planet on the far side of the galaxy, the crew of the colony ship Covenant discovers what they think is an uncharted paradise, but is actually a dark, dangerous world — whose sole inhabitant is the “synthetic” David (Michael Fassbender), survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition.
Alien: Covenant is set for release on May 19th, 2017 and is penned by Michael Green, Jack Paglen and John Logan. Prometheus stars Michael Fassbender and Noomi Rapace return alongside new cast additions Katherine Waterston (Inherent Vice), Danny McBride (Eastbound & Down), Demian Bichir (A Better Life), Billy Crudup (Watchmen), Jussie Smollett (Empire), Carmen Ejogo (Selma), Amy Seimetz (Upstream Color), Benjamin Rigby (That’s Not Me), Callie Hernandez (Machete Kills) and James Franco (Why Him?).
Originally published January 3, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
