Ridley Scott Says He Single-Handedly Saved the ‘Alien’ Franchise With ‘Prometheus’
The ‘Alien‘ franchise has had one of the strangest life cycles in Hollywood, swinging between horror-genre triumphs and outright creative collapse over nearly five decades. Ridley Scott, the filmmaker who started it all in 1979, has never been shy about which chapters he considers worthy of the name.
That franchise nearly died more than once, and Scott stepped away from the director’s chair for years after the original film before eventually returning to clean up what he saw as a mess left behind by other filmmakers. It’s a grievance he’s aired before, but he just put it in sharper, blunter terms than usual.
Speaking with French outlet Brut, Scott didn’t hold back when asked about his legacy within the series. “I did the best one by far,” he said. “Full stop. End of the f***ing story.” He went on to explain that after 1997’s ‘Alien Resurrection’, the franchise was effectively finished until he decided to bring it back himself.
“Then they let it die,” Scott continued. “After [Alien] 4, they killed it. So I sat there thinking, I’m going to bring it back. So I sat down with a very good writer, two guys, and eventually ended up with Damon Lindelof, and we caught fire and wrote ‘Prometheus’.” He added that the 2012 prequel reignited enough momentum for him to follow it up with ‘Alien: Covenant’ in 2017, calling the franchise “up and running” again.
It’s a pointed jab at ‘Alien Resurrection’, which starred Sigourney Weaver and Winona Ryder under director Jean-Pierre Jeunet. That film pulled in just $47.8 million domestically, making it the lowest-grossing entry in the series at the time and drawing sharp criticism on release. ‘Prometheus’, by contrast, brought together a stacked cast that included Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba, Logan Marshall-Green and Charlize Theron, and currently holds a 73 percent critics’ score, trailing only ‘Aliens’, the original ‘Alien’ and 2024’s ‘Alien: Romulus’ among the franchise’s entries.
Scott’s comments arrive as he’s actively working to finish what ‘Prometheus’ and ‘Covenant’ started. The director has confirmed he’s returning to conclude his prequel trilogy alongside Fassbender, picking up the story of the android David after the 2017 film’s ambiguous ending. According to Scott, the plan builds directly off ‘Covenant’, with Fassbender’s character now believing himself to be “Ozymandias.”
That announcement follows Scott’s involvement in reworking 2024’s ‘Alien: Romulus’, the Fede Álvarez-directed interquel that became a box office success and reignited mainstream interest in the franchise without directly continuing the Prometheus storyline. Scott has previously suggested that entry could use “some help,” and his renewed presence behind the scenes suggests he still sees himself as the franchise’s primary caretaker.
The timing also lines up with fresh momentum on the small screen. FX recently renewed Noah Hawley’s television spinoff ‘Alien: Earth’ for a second season, adding another branch to a franchise that now spans film and television simultaneously. Between the TV expansion and Scott’s promised return to close out his own trilogy, ‘Alien’ shows no signs of slowing down nearly fifty years after it first terrified audiences.
Whether or not fans agree that ‘Prometheus’ was the franchise’s true saving grace, Scott clearly isn’t finished shaping its legacy.
Did Ridley Scott really save the Alien franchise with Prometheus?
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