After the lackluster box office performance of Alien: Covenant, 20th Century Fox isn’t quite ready to give director Ridley Scott’s two proposed sequels the green light. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the studio will be taking steps to “reassess” the Alien series while Scott returns to the director’s seat for two upcoming feature films, All the Money in the World and The Cartel.
Covenant wasn’t by any means a box office flop, but it’s hard to argue that a franchise is on an upward trend when the previous film (Prometheus) made $170 million more than the latest installment. Covenant most likely made its money back, taking in a worldwide total of $232 million on a $97 million budget, but Fox clearly was hoping more people would flock to the theaters.
The Prometheus sequel posted a fine opening weekend number at the domestic box office; during its second weekend, however, the film took a massive 71% tumble, and it was all downhill from there.
At the end of the day, neither Prometheus nor Covenant were exactly audience friendly movies, when maybe they should have been. Despite genuine scenes of action and horror, Scott decided to make the films big-budget meditations on the cycle of creation and futility of long-term survival and ultimately created films that were more profound and metaphorical than most big-budget blockbusters.
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Overall, the future of the Alien franchise is uncertain, although, at this point, uncertainty isn’t unfamiliar ground for the series. Either way, fans of Covenant can see it again on Digital HD starting August 1st or pick it up on Blu-ray and DVD two weeks later.
Originally published July 22, 2017. Updated November 30, 2022.
