Ridley Scott Confirms the ‘Alien: Covenant’ Sequel Fans Thought Was Dead Is Finally Happening

Ridley Scott has never been shy about revisiting the world he created back in 1979, and nearly a decade after his last trip through the franchise, he’s making it clear he isn’t finished with one particular storyline. The director has spent recent years focused elsewhere in the ‘Alien‘ universe, watching as Fede Álvarez’s ‘Alien: Romulus’ and Noah Hawley’s ‘Alien: Earth’ carried the franchise in new directions without him.

That made his latest comments, buried in a new interview promoting his post-apocalyptic film ‘The Dog Stars,’ catch plenty of fans off guard. Scott had long described ‘Prometheus’ and ‘Alien: Covenant’ as the first two chapters of an intended trilogy, one meant to dovetail directly into the events of the original ‘Alien,’ but that third installment stalled out after ‘Covenant’ underperformed at the box office back in 2017.

Now, according to a new interview with the Los Angeles Times, that long-dormant follow-up is officially back in development. Scott confirmed the sequel will continue the story of Michael Fassbender’s David, the unsettling synthetic who took control of the Covenant and its colonists at the end of the 2017 film, describing the project as centered on David creating “a brave new world for himself.”

Scott’s fascination with the character hasn’t faded in the years since. Describing David as a kind of ticking time bomb, the director told the LA Times, “AIs can go off. And if they do, it’s like a bomb,” a line that suggests the sequel will lean even further into the android’s descent toward full villainy rather than pulling back from it.

That direction tracks closely with where ‘Covenant’ left things off. The film ended with the horrifying reveal that David had secretly destroyed and replaced his fellow android Walter, also played by Fassbender, before informing Daniels, played by Katherine Waterston, that he’d smuggled facehugger embryos aboard the ship as it continued toward the colony world of Origae-6. With the Xenomorphs and the mysterious Engineers seemingly converging on a collision course, the unfinished trilogy had left plenty of unresolved threads for Scott to pick back up.

Fassbender himself has signaled openness to returning in past interviews, telling Esquire that he’d be interested in working with Scott again given how rewarding he found the experience on ‘Covenant,’ even while admitting more recently to ScreenRant that he doesn’t spend much time thinking about a potential sequel. Scott’s newly confirmed comments give that possibility fresh momentum, though there’s still no official word on a production timeline, a writer, or confirmation that Fassbender is locked in to return.

‘Covenant’ itself remains a divisive entry in the franchise, currently sitting at 65% on Rotten Tomatoes with a 55% “rotten” audience score, following a $240.9 million worldwide box office run against a budget between $97 and $111 million. Scott has previously reflected on the franchise’s uneven box office history, telling Variety that after resurrecting the series with ‘Prometheus’ from a blank page, he pushed forward again with ‘Covenant,’ adding that he felt he’d “done enough” and hoped the story would continue further without him.

Scott is also currently producing a sequel to ‘Alien: Romulus,’ meaning the director now has a hand in multiple corners of the franchise’s future simultaneously. Whether this newly confirmed David-centered sequel ultimately closes out the trilogy he originally envisioned, or opens up an entirely new chapter, remains to be seen as more details emerge.

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