Ridley Scott Calls ALIEN: ROMULUS “Okay” and Takes the Franchise Back Into His Hands

Ridley Scott already revealed that he’s developing a sequel to Alien: Covenant, and now he’s offered another interesting update on the project. Scott is rewriting the next Alien movie himself as he returns to David’s unfinished story and the android’s plans to create a “brave new world for himself.”

Scott previously explained that the follow-up will continue directly from Covenant, with David once again driving the story. He also pointed to the dangers of artificial intelligence as an important part of what he wants to explore. "AIs can go off. And if they do, it’s like a bomb."

Now Scott has confirmed that he’s personally working on the screenplay. “I’m rewriting the next Alien movie,” Scott told French outlet AlloCiné. “I suddenly went back and got involved. The one that just came out last year [Romulus] was okay. I think it needs some help. So I’ve gone back in.”

It’s kind of funny hearing Scott describe Romulus as simply “okay” because that movie was awesome and gave the franchise a fresh jolt of energy.

Scott has such an interesting relationship with Alien. Whenever another filmmaker comes along with a cool idea for the franchise, Scott seems compelled to step back in because he believes his vision is the one worth pursuing.

We’ve seen a version of this before with Neill Blomkamp and his proposed Alien 5, which was moving toward production before it fell apart as Scott moved forward with his own prequel plans. Now, with Romulus opening another promising path for the franchise, Scott is once again steering things back toward the story he wants to tell.

Scott has been part of Alien since directing the original 1979 sci-fi horror classic. James Cameron later transformed Aliens into an action movie, while David Fincher and Jean-Pierre Jeunet took the franchise down their own strange paths in the 1990s.

Scott eventually returned to the universe with Prometheus in 2012 and Alien: Covenant in 2017. Both movies received mixed reactions, and Covenant suffered a significant drop at the box office, leaving Scott’s planned continuation on the shelf.

Fede Álvarez then brought the franchise back to its horror roots with Alien: Romulus in 2024, which earned $350.9 million worldwide and put Alien back in a strong position theatrically.

While Romulus opened another path forward, Scott remains interested in finishing the story he started with Prometheus.

“I’ve already got a footprint for the next Alien,” Scott said. “We did Prometheus and then Covenant. So I’m picking up where we left off in Covenant with Michael Fassbender, who now thinks he’s Ozymandias.”

Michael Fassbender played David in Prometheus before returning for Covenant, where he also played the newer android Walter. By the end of Covenant, David had secretly replaced Walter and taken control of the colony ship carrying thousands of sleeping settlers.

He also brought along Xenomorph embryos. That left David with everything he needed to continue his horrific experiments, and Scott’s reference to Ozymandias makes it clear that the android’s growing god complex will remain an important part of the story.

Scott is also leaning harder into the AI aspect of David, something that feels even more relevant now than it did when Covenant arrived in 2017.

“I like the fact that AI has gone off the rails,” Scott said. “If we go AI, the moment we discover it’s off the rails, it’s too late. It could switch every digital thing off in the world like that. You’d have f–king chaos. It’s that kind of stuff that’s scary.”

The project has roots in Alien: Awakening, the proposed follow-up to Covenant that Scott planned before the studio shelved it following the film’s disappointing box office performance.

Nearly a decade later, Scott is finally returning to that unfinished storyline at a time when conversations surrounding AI have become much more prominent.

His involvement also raises questions about the planned Alien: Romulus sequel. A report in July 2026 claimed the Romulus follow-up had been indefinitely shelved after Álvarez exited as director, with alleged friction involving Scott and the possibility of David appearing in the movie.

Steve Asbell, 20th Century Studios’ President of Production, publicly denied that claim in response to a since-deleted post.

No new director has been announced for the Romulus sequel, though, while Scott is now actively rewriting his own Covenant continuation. So, for the moment, it’s unclear how 20th Century Studios plans to handle both projects or which one will reach theaters first.

Scott returning to David is easily the most interesting part of this. Fassbender’s performance was one of the best things about both Prometheus and Covenant, and the last movie left the character in a seriously twisted position with thousands of colonists completely at his mercy.

Now Scott finally has a chance to show us exactly what David intends to do with his “brave new world.”