Ridley Scott will produce a new Alien 5 movie with Fede Álvarez on board to write and direct. Scott directed the original Alien, released in 1979, which starred Sigourney Weaver and spawned a massive global franchise. James Cameron directed the epic sequel, Aliens, in 1986, with David Fincher directing Alien 3 in 1992. Alien: Resurrection was the fourth film in the series, directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and released in 1997. Scott did a prequel to the series with Prometheus in 2012, then followed up with a sequel to that film, Alien: Covenant, in 2017.
Currently, an Alien TV series is in the works from showrunner Noah Hawley, which is set to debut on FX. That series will take place roughly 70 years in the future and take place on Earth and will not feature Weaver's lead character of Ripley, who has become synonymous with the franchise. A number of planned sequels have fallen to the wayside in recent years, including a new sequel to Cameron's Aliens that was to be directed by Neill Blomkamp, and a follow-up sequel to Covenant that was to be directed by Scott.
Now it's been announced that director Fede Álvarez (Don't Breathe, Evil Dead) will write and direct a new Alien 5 film (via THR), which will not be part of the regular continuity and will feature new characters. Álvarez is a huge fan of the franchise and pitched an idea to Scott years ago, which is now greenlit to move forward. 20th Century Studios' Steve Asbell said that the green light came “purely off the strength of Fede’s pitch," and that "It was just a really good story with a bunch of characters you haven’t seen before.” The film will debut on Hulu and is said to be "unconnected to the previous movies." Asbell went on to talk about the debut on Hulu, saying that it allows the film to be more authentic to its genre roots without being an all-audiences endeavor. Here's his quote on that:
“It’s not a film that has to be all things to all people with those gargantuan budgets. They get to be authentically what they are. And this is closer to its genre roots.”
Recently, Asbell outlined the future plans for 20th Century Studios, which includes making 10 original films per year for Hulu. Alien 5 will be one of those projects in the pipeline, joining the already announced Predator film directed by Dan Trachtenberg, Prey, coming to the service later this year. No word on the planned follow-up to Scott's Covenent was mentioned, but the director is currently in production on his Napoleon biopic with Joaquin Phoenix and has said that his long-awaited Gladiator sequel would be next after that.
Alvarez is an inspired choice to tackle the Alien franchise, as his work on both the Evil Dead remake and Don't Breathe have shown a tremendous handle on dark genre material. The director's style, pacing, and understanding of tension should lend a great deal of excitement to the project, which will be the first time a new director (other than Scott) has tackled the Alien solo franchise since Alien: Resurrection. Either way, it's good to see Disney making use of the big IP franchises, such as Alien 5, they acquired in the Fox merger, which should bring about some solid entries from the newly revitalized 20th Century Studios and help Hulu's streaming numbers in a big way.
Source: THR