From Prometheus to Alien: Covenant, Ridley Scott made fans wait 5 years.
It's been almost another 5 years, and the audience has not waited for his next Alien movie, but for his two blockbuster new works, "The Last Duel" and "Gucci Family".
In 2018, the sequel project "Awakening" script of "Alien: Covenant" was announced, but the filmmaker Fox at the time has not turned on the green light, and in 2017, the news of the suspension of the related sequel was announced.
The reason is that "Alien: Covenant" did not do well at the box office, with a cost of nearly $100 million, and the global box office only earned 240 million, which was not enough to return the cost. This made Fox dare not risk losing money again.
Then Disney bought Fox, but the R-rated IP was very different from Disney's family fun style, and the fact was that most of the coverage focused on the Marvel X-Men and Avatar, and even the "Devil May Cry" series. The Alien IP seemed to have been forgotten at the time, although Ridley Scott's two prequels had laid the groundwork for the series to develop the cinematic universe.
Last summer, probably to promote the show "Alien Cataclysm", Old Ray talked about his plans for the "Alien" prequel trilogy, especially the third movie "Awakening".
As if he was reminding Disney, hey, you can engage in the "Alien Universe"!
Remembering will reverberate.
In September, he revealed to Forbes magazine that a new Alien movie was in the works.
By December, the Disney Investor Conference, sure enough, officially announced a new project for the Alien Universe.
However, it is not the third part of the expected prequel trilogy, but a spin-off series.
Then came the summer, and the series came with a new dynamic.
At the Television Critics Association's summer event, FX TV boss John Langroff personally said he was optimistic that the series would air in 2023.
In fact, this project was not started by Disney, as early as March 2019, during Disney's acquisition of Fox, foreign media Deadline disclosed a "Alien" miniseries project directed by Noah Holly, but before filming began, it was cut by Emma Watts, president of 20th Century Fox.
Noah Holly directed and wrote the screenplay, worked on the American dramas Ice Storm and The Swarm, and was invited to write the script for Star Trek 4.
In September, Foreign media Outlet reported on Noah Holly's thoughts on the originally aborted episodic project, arguing that Alien is somehow the complete opposite of Star Trek, showing the dark side of humanity. One thing that is extremely frightening is that humans will kill each other, but aliens will not.
If you can expand the story, in 10 hours, there are two hours of action fights, then there are eight hours, you can take away the original superhero elements like "The Swarm", and specifically talk about "people".
Disney's official "Alien" episode is Noah Holly's original project.
It is also broadcast by Fox's FX TV station, and it is also Noah Holly who is responsible for creating it.
Intelligence from the end of last year showed that the main stage of the story would be on Earth, not the spaceships or alien planets commonly found in the film series.
This is indeed a great addition to the Alien Universe. What happens to Earth when a human spacecraft is exploring outer space and encounters an alien?
If the timeline can be combined with the time between the previous 6 movies, especially between Prometheus and Alien, it will be absolutely good news for fans.
What's more, Noah Holly's philosophy is similar to Ridley Scott's, focusing not on the tension of the alien monster, but on a return to thinking about humans themselves.
John Langroff praised Noah Holly's idea, arguing that viewers will see a series from the alien cinematic universe you're familiar with.
The original "Alien" is really coming back.
The status of the "Alien" IP in the field of science fiction movies is god-level, and the only thing that can be compared to it and can be a series at present is probably the "Blade Runner" IP.
What "Star Wars" and "Avatar" are indeed more popular, but in terms of the depth of the theme, it is not a grade.
As we all know, the design of the alien has many metaphors, which hide Ridley Scott's thinking and exploration of life.
Unfortunately, Fox Pictures is getting farther and farther away from the original intention of the first part in the planning of the entire series.
This has a lot to do with the constant change of directors of the canon four-part.
The second James Cameron took over, adding a commercial flavor and surpassing the first at the box office;
So that when the third David Finch wanted to do some stylization, he was meddled by the producers, resulting in a decline in word of mouth;
The fourth part, Jean-Pierre Genet, opened his mind again, leaning on the alien to humanity, the reputation is somewhat polar, some people feel that there are highlights, some people feel that the "Alien" series has lost its original taste.
Fifteen years later, Ridley Scott himself directed Prometheus, expressing his more, deeper thoughts about the Alien.
Alien: Covenant also co-produced many short films, but unfortunately he failed to bring enough box office to Fox, and Fox decided to shift the focus of this IP to spin-off game development.
In the original three Awakenings scenarios, the engineer will be told to carry out a revenge plan against David, the cyborg played by Michael Fassbinder, and the main stage of the story will return to the planet LV-426, which is the planet where Ripley, played by Sigour River in Alien, will go, thus connecting the prequel and the main sequel.
The drama version of "Alien" is likely to be an important step in advancing Old Ray's vision.
Just wait until the episode airs, and old Ray is 86 years old.
If you continue to make movies smoothly, it will take at least two or three years;
By the time he turns 90, the story of the main and prequels will probably be complete.
Hopefully, at his age of 100, all the mysteries of the Aliens will be revealed, or a direction will be pointed out, so that the Alien Universe can continue to travel in the right direction and will no longer be mistaken for monster popcorn.