Throughout the course of Alien: Covenant‘s prolonged development cycle, writer-director Ridley Scott ran the risk of putting the cart before the horse by indulging in his plans for multiple sequels – sequels that would go on to dovetail his Prometheus prequel saga with the original Alien movie that spawned a million nightmares back in ’79.
But in light of Covenant‘s less-than-stellar box office performance – $74 million domestic and $158m overseas for a combined total of $232m – 20th Century Fox has reportedly pumped the brakes on those ambitious franchise plans for the time being. As part of its midsummer analysis, one which revealed Channing Tatum to be an early frontrunner for Universal’s Van Helsing, The Hollywood Reporter notes that Fox is now in the process of “reassessing” the future of the Alien franchise, which doesn’t necessarily bode well for Scott’s aforementioned sequel plans.
Long before this particular development, the illustrious filmmaker estimated that he would be back in the realm of Xenomorphs and towering Engineers within 14 months, thereby allowing him to launch The Cartel and Getty kidnapping movie All the Money in the World. But as THR points out, the Powers That Be over at 20th Century Fox will seemingly use that window as an opportunity to place the Alien series under the microscope.
Much like Pirates of the Caribbean and Transformers, Covenant suffered at the domestic box office, raising concerns that Fox’s flagship horror/sci-fi series had contracted a bad case of franchise fatigue. To date, Ridley Scott has pitched two sequels to Alien: Covenant, but it’s nigh on certain that the director will have to reach some form of compromise with the studio if his prequel saga is to continue.
Alien: Covenant will slither onto Digital HD (read: Amazon Video and iTunes) on August 1st, before Scott’s prequel-sequel is available to pick up on Blu-ray and DVD from August 15th.