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Ridley Scott Talks ‘Alien: Covenant,’ Reveals Presence Of All Xenomorph Variants

By Dustin Wicksell
Published on: 07:48 PST, Dec 14, 2015

Alien: Covenant may be well over a year away from release, but director Ridley Scott is already stoking excitement among fans of the franchise, revealing in a new interview that the xenomorphs will be returning to the screen in a big way in 2017.

Scott made the comments during a recent interview with the Wrap, during which he discussed his recent success with The Martian. When asked about his next project, which the interviewer described as a sequel to Prometheus, Scott responded by saying that “really it’s Alien,” before going into some detail regarding the plot of the next installment in the franchise.

According to Scott, Alien: Covenant will pick up after the events of Prometheus, and will see Noomi Repace and Michael Fassbender traveling to the home planet of the engineers. Once on that as-yet-unnamed world, the duo will encounter “the evolving creature that [the engineers] had made,” Scott noted.

The director went on to question why the engineers would create the xenomorphs, citing the bio-mechanized feel of the species. Saying that the aliens “felt like a weapon,” Scott asserted that Covenant would explain the origins of the xenomorphs, while also simultaneously re-introducing them into the franchise. Scott then went on to point out that such a re-introduction wouldn’t be undertaken lightly.

“There was always this discussion: Is Alien, the character, the beast, played out or not? We’ll have them all: egg, face-hugger, chest-burster, then the big boy. I think maybe we can go another round or two.”

Fans who were disappointed by the lack of xenomorphs in Prometheus will no doubt be overjoyed at Scott’s assertion, as Dread Central points out. The full spectrum of the aliens’ life cycle hasn’t been portrayed on-screen in nearly a decade, since the 2007 release of Alien Vs Predator: Requiem.

As most fans also know, Alien: Covenant isn’t the only entry into the franchise currently in the production pipeline. Earlier this year, it was revealed that director Neill Blomkamp would be helming the fifth Alien film (as distinct from the Prometheus universe) after concept art for the project leaked online. At the time, Scott’s Prometheus sequel was untitled, though it was eventually revealed that it would be called Alien: Paradise Lost. In the intervening months, the title has been changed to Alien: Covenant, and Blomkamp’s film has been delayed pending the production of Scott’s entry into the series.

While Blomkamp’s untitled production won’t be hitting screens anytime soon, it will nevertheless be made, according to Michael Biehn, who is set to return to the franchise in the film (Biehn played colonial marine Cpl. Dwayne Hicks in the 1986 entry, Aliens). In a recent interview with Icons of Fright, Biehn revealed that Blomkamp‘s film will ignore the events of Alien 3 and Resurrection, re-introducing characters from Aliens and functioning as a “passing of the torch” moment for Sigourney Weaver’s character. Biehn also noted that Blomkamp’s Alien film is set to take place thousands of years after the events of Covenant, following the two established branches of the franchise.

When both of those films are eventually released, fans will still have much to look forward to, as Ridley Scott has previously revealed that his film will function as the beginning of a planned trilogy, which will eventually intersect with the world of the original movie. That trilogy won’t kick off for nearly two years, however, as Alien: Covenant doesn’t hit theaters until October 6, 2017.

[Photo by Brad Barket/Getty Images]

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