20th Century Studios is developing a new Alien movie, with Aaron Guzikowski writing the script and Ridley Scott producing. The Hollywood Reporter broke the news on Friday, October 23, and Deadline confirmed it the same day. The film is not a sequel to 2024’s Alien: Romulus. It instead connects to Prometheus (2012) and Alien: Covenant (2017), the two prequels Scott directed.
No director is attached, and Scott is not set to direct at this stage. He will produce with Michael Pruss through his company, Scott Free. Deadline describes the project as being in very early development, and no plot details have been released.
David is the link
According to The Hollywood Reporter’s sources, as relayed by World of Reel, the connection to Prometheus and Covenant runs through David, the android Michael Fassbender played in both films. Fassbender is not attached to the new movie.
Covenant ended with David in control of the colony ship Covenant, its crew and thousands of sleeping colonists under his watch, along with a supply of embryos. No film has picked up that story in the nine years since.
Scott has talked about it for a while. In an August interview with the French outlet AlloCiné, reported by Gizmodo, he said he was rewriting the next Alien film and planned to continue from the end of Covenant with Fassbender’s David, an android “who now thinks he’s Ozymandias.” In the same interview he described Romulus as just okay.
Guzikowski and Scott have worked together before
The project reunites Guzikowski with Scott after Raised by Wolves, the HBO Max series about two androids raising human children on a distant planet after Earth is destroyed. Guzikowski created the show, and Scott executive produced it and directed its first two episodes. It ran for two seasons before HBO Max canceled it.
Guzikowski’s best known film credit is Prisoners, Denis Villeneuve’s 2013 kidnapping thriller starring Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal. He also wrote the 2017 Papillon remake and created the Sundance TV series The Red Road with Jason Momoa. Dark Horizons reports his current projects include an animated feature set in the Death Stranding universe.
Where Romulus 2 stands
Alien: Romulus, directed by Fede Alvarez, opened in August 2024 and earned about $350 million worldwide. A sequel was announced afterward, but The Hollywood Reporter describes it as being in limbo, according to World of Reel. Scott is also attached to that project as a producer. 20th Century has not given an update on its status.
The Alien franchise has also expanded on television with Noah Hawley’s Alien: Earth on FX and Hulu, which is set before the 1979 original.
No release date, casting, or production start has been announced for the Guzikowski film.
Sources: Deadline | World of Reel | Gizmodo | Dark Horizons
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