Age is no obstacle to Ridley Scott. Despite being 88 years old, the filmmaker has continued his creative pursuits with The Dog Stars, starring Jacob Elordi, and an upcoming film adaptation of Treasure Island, but he’s not stopping there. A follow-up to 2018’s Alien: Covenant is revealed to be in the works, with David, the synthetic android played by Michael Fassbender in Alien: Prometheus and its 2018 sequel, set to be the central focus.
Speaking to L.A. Times, Scott shared that the story will pick up with the character “creating a brave new world for himself”. “The uneasy question is: Can the AI only be as good as the information fed into it? If I say ‘Here’s a blank canvas, write me such and such,’ would that just be a melange of millions of other scripts? Probably. But the danger is it’ll pass that point and become smarter than we are,” he added.
In the two films, David is a malfunctioning AI android introduced as a maintenance crew member on the Prometheus who killed everyone on board and later pretended to be Walter, whom Fassbender also portrays, to gain the trust of the last few survivors. It’s unclear when, or if, the new Alien project will see the light of day, given how it’s been in development hell for almost a decade.
This latest update comes 47 years after the original film, directed by Scott himself. Led by Sigourney Weaver in her breakout role as Ripley, Alien follows a commercial starship crew who investigate a derelict space vessel and are hunted by the deadly Xenomorph. While it initially received mixed reviews, the film is now considered one of the most influential sci-fi and horror pics of all time, spawning three mainline sequels, the Alien vs. Predator crossover movies, the standalone Alien: Romulus sequel to Prometheus and Covenant, and Noah Hawley’s Alien: Earth prequel show.
A follow-up to 2024’s Romulus is currently in the works, but Fede Alvarez won’t be returning to the director’s chair. Instead, the filmmaker will serve as producer alongside Scott, with the story set to tread “into uncharted waters”. The first entry is set between the first two films in the long-running franchise and starred Caliee Spaeny (Priscilla), David Jonsson (Industry), Archie Renaux (Shadow and Bone), Isabela Merced (Dora and the Lost City of Gold), Spike Fearn (Tell Me Everything), and Aileen Wu as six young space colonists who encounter hostile creatures while scavenging a derelict space station.
Si Jia is a casual geek at heart – or as casual as someone with Sephiroth’s theme on her Spotify playlist can get. A fan of movies, games, and Japanese culture, Si Jia’s greatest weakness is the Steam Summer Sale. Or any Steam sale, really.
Ting Wei
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