On his quest to reshape and take ownership of the ALIEN franchise he began back in 1979, director Ridley Scott might have thought he was going to win over fans who were disappointed by the prequel PROMETHEUS by including the classic xenomorph in the second chapter in his prequel saga, ALIEN: COVENANT. It wasn't that simple, though. We got the xenomorph back, but in a very divisive film. Reactions were even split in a big way here on Arrow in the Head – Jake Dee gave COVENANT a 9/10 review, while Eric Walkuski gave it a 3/10. I lean more toward the negative on the film myself.
The critical score came out at 71% positive on Rotten Tomatoes, with audiences scoring the movie lower than that – 59%. But what really has Fox registering the idea that ALIEN: COVENANT was something of a letdown is that the box office results are falling short of PROMETHEUS's. COVENANT have pulled in $232 million at the global box office so far, $74 million of that domestic. PROMETHEUS earned $403 million global, $126 million domestic. COVENANT had a 70% drop in its second weekend, PROMETHEUS's drop was 59%.
Scott still wants to make more prequels to fit in between PROMETHEUS and the original ALIEN, and back in May he said he expected to be filming the next ALIEN project in 14 months… so around next July. That's not a certainty, and Scott is a busy guy. He's not just going to wait around to make that movie his next directorial project.
In fact, Scott has two other projects lined up and ready to go – ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD, which is about the kidnapping of teenage oil business heir John Paul Getty III back in 1973, and THE CARTEL, an adaptation of the Don Winslow novel about the Mexican – American drug wars.
While Scott is busy with those films, Fox will be deciding how to proceed with the ALIEN franchise. Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter the studio
will have to reassess two intended sequels Scott has pitched
My advice, and my preference, would be for them to cut it down to just one movie that would wrap up the COVENANT cliffhanger and get us out of this prequel mess.
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