Alien may go back to Prometheus: keep the ideas, ditch the baggage

What do you do when your franchise finally gets a crowd-pleaser and you answer by reopening its most argued-over chapter? Apparently, you call Ridley Scott. The new Alien film is a bold move, and we think a risky one.

The Prometheus link is reported, not official

According to CFJC Today's report, a new Alien movie is in development at 20th Century Studios. Aaron Guzikowski, creator of Raised by Wolves, is set to write it, and it will be produced under Ridley Scott. The film is reportedly not connected to Alien: Romulus or to the upcoming second season of Alien: Earth. Sources indicate it ties directly to Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, and the report mentions Michael Fassbender's rogue android David in that context.

Keep the wording in mind: the Prometheus link comes from sources, so treat the details as reported, not official. Meanwhile, the Romulus sequel is in limbo after Fede Álvarez exited. Some outlets said it was shelved, but JoBlo reports that the president of 20th Century Studios says it has not been cancelled.

Turning away from the hit is the strangest part

Here's what puzzles us. Romulus grossed more than $350 million worldwide, and MovieWeb calls it a pulpy return to form. Spaeny's Rain has been described as a modern-day Ripley of sorts. That's the rarest asset a legacy franchise can own: a new generation of characters that people want to see again.

Walking away from that momentum, or at least parking it, is a choice that says something about who holds the keys. Scott made Prometheus and Covenant, and he evidently still has unfinished business with them. We understand the instinct. A filmmaker who built a mythology wants to land the plane. But a studio is not obliged to indulge that instinct at the exact moment the audience is telling it what it likes.

There's also a fair counterargument. Romulus worked partly because it went back to basics, and basics get stale fast. A franchise that only repeats its leanest version eventually becomes a haunted-house ride with better lighting. Betting on ideas again, after a hit, is not crazy. It is just expensive if it goes wrong.

The ideas are worth saving; the baggage is not

Prometheus and Covenant divided people, and we won't pretend otherwise. But dividing people is not the same as being empty. They asked big questions about creation, about what artificial minds want and about what a creator owes its creations. David, as played by Fassbender, is still one of the most interesting things this series has produced. Those are ideas that a smaller, meaner film like Romulus was never going to explore.

The baggage is a different matter. Our wish list, clearly an opinion and not a prediction:

• Make it work for newcomers. If you need homework on two earlier films to understand the stakes, the film has failed the Romulus audience before it starts.
• Keep the dread front and center. The mythology should be what makes the creature scarier, not a lecture that interrupts it.
• Let David be a character, not a fan-service cameo. If he returns, he needs a reason beyond nostalgia.

Guzikowski is an interesting pick on paper, but whether his Raised by Wolves background translates into a tight Alien script is something nobody can say yet. We have no plot, no cast and no release date, and anyone claiming otherwise is guessing.

Our verdict

Reopening Prometheus and Covenant would be a gamble, but not a foolish one. The franchise has more to say than "something with teeth is hunting you in the dark", and Scott is the person with the most invested in the larger story. Still, the safest reading of the situation is also the smartest: treat Romulus as proof that audiences will show up when the film is lean and scary, and treat the older films as a toolbox, not a contract.

If the new film honors both lessons, it could be the rare sequel that expands a series without alienating the people Romulus won back. If it simply doubles down on the lore, it risks reviving the most divisive chapter in the series' history for the sake of a conversation that already ended. We're cautiously curious, and we'd say the same to the studio: be ambitious, but bring the scares.