Alien: Covenant moves to summer 2017, The Predator dated for 2018

Last Updated on July 21, 2021

Twentieth Century Fox updated their release schedule over the weekend, and their refreshed list of release dates contained some cool news for genre fans.

First is the revelation that director Ridley Scott's ALIEN prequel / PROMETHEUS sequel ALIEN: COVENANT will be reaching theatres two months earlier than expected, moving up from October 6, 2017 to August 4, 2017.

With a cast that so far includes Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Danny McBride, Demian Bichir, Jussie Smollett, Carmen Ejogo, Amy Seimetz, Callie Hernandez, and maybe Billy Crudup, ALIEN: COVENANT will tell the following story: 

Bound for a remote planet on the far side of the galaxy, the crew of the colony ship Covenant discovers what they think is an uncharted paradise, but is actually a dark, dangerous world — whose sole inhabitant is the "synthetic" David, survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition.

As good as it is to hear that we'll be able to return to the ALIEN universe sooner than we thought, I'm even more excited that Fox has picked the date when former alien opponent THE PREDATOR will be back on the big screen, and it's almost exactly two years from now.

To be directed by Shane Black from a script by his THE MONSTER SQUAD collaborator Fred Dekker, the next installment in the PREDATOR franchise has been scheduled for a March 2, 2018 release. It will be missing the thirtieth anniversary of the first PREDATOR, which came out in 1987, but not by much.

THE PREDATOR is cloaked in secrecy, but Black has described what he and Dekker are putting together as "an inventive sequel".

With new ALIEN and PREDATOR movies on the way that will be coming out just seven months apart, there are (hopefully) some fun times ahead

PROMETHEUS