"Alien: Covenant" was a disappointment. It went back to the narrative structure of the of the first two movies. Ridley Scott decided to feed the masses and say "fuck it" to any kind of artistic statement. Are some scenes scary? Yes, but they're just empty thrills, empty calories that don't have the substance of "Prometheus." This "Covenant" just wanted to entertain, nothing wrong with that, but we deserved better.
If "Prometheus" was an ambitious film that asked questions about our own existence, this latest film was madly obvious, at times tepidly pedestrian. It's a greatest hits package. Scott wanted to tell us about the grand ideas he hinted at in "Prometheus," but wanted to also please the masses that didn't show up for that far artsier movie.
It looks like "Alien" Covenant" might be the last we hear from the Alien franchise. In a recent interview with The Toronto Sun, its director Ridley Scott spoke about why there should be more:
“I think they have to. There’s no reason why Alien should now not be on the same level for fans as Star Trek and Star Wars. So I think the next step as to where we go is, do we sustain the Alien (series) with the evolution of the beast or do we reinvent something else? I think you need to have an evolution on this famous beast because he’s the best monster ever, really.”
The Canadian newspaper then asked Scott if another film is in the works for him and replied with this:
“I would like to; they’re crazy if they don’t. David is a fantastic villain. I love what (Michael Fassbender) did in Covenant. But it’s f—ing hard, dude. We lifted Alien out of a ditch and made Prometheus.”
If there's a highlight to "Covenant", it most definitely was Michael Fassbender. Playing dual roles, Walter and David, Fassbender managed to bring scary humanity to a cold-hearted duo of robots. The fireworks that spared between the two were the clear-cut highlights of the movie. I wrote in my review "Fassbender, now 40 years old, delivers a tour-de-force, one of the highlights of his storied career, managing to give us skin-crawling performances that only hint at the potential that was lurking in Scott's mad-scientist ideas, too bad the venerable director had to resort to conventional tropes for box-office potential."
Omega Underground has reported that 20th Century Fox really wanted an "Alien: Covenant 2," with a start to production in the of Summer 2018, that is until the movie was released to tepid box-office and reviews.
A person supposedly in the know on the Blu-Ray.com forums who says he worked on "Alien: Covenant", says the sequel has been canceled by 20th Century Fox:
“The sequel to Covenant was originally due to start pre-production this month in Sydney. After the box office results filming was canceled, and a warehouse storage unit full of stuff was auctioned off a few months ago. So the original plan of pumping out another quickly has definitely changed with no immediate plans for anything.”
Who knows what is going on but the dreary results for "Alien: Covenant" have left a bitter taste in my mouth, especially since I LOVED the underrated "Prometheus." What's next? A sequel? A total reboot of the franchise?