Ridley Scott Says "The Beast Has Almost Run Out" On 'Alien'

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Whatever the future holds for “Alien” remains to be seen, but at least we can count out the franchise being owned by Disney. Ridley Scott has forever talked about numerous prequels to his classic piece of sci-fi horror, but we’ll see what Fox decides after the underwhelming returns on “Alien: Covenant” (though the director seems to think the numbers are just fine). At any rate, Scott is now indicating that perhaps the franchise has run out of xenomorph-y steam.

In an excerpt from a roundtable talk with THR (via Dark Horizons), the filmmaker talks about why he wasn’t able to helm “Blade Runner 2049” and the future of the “Alien” series.

“It was a crossfire of too much business. I’m doing a lot of TV and films, there are six films going out this year,” Scott explained. “I figured it was a good piece of business to follow through ‘Prometheus,’ which, from ground zero, had good lift-off. So we went to ‘Covenant’ to perpetuate the idea and [revive] the franchise of the ‘Alien.’ I think the beast has almost run out, personally. [On ‘2049’] you’ve got to come in with something else, you’ve got to replace that. And on ‘Blade Runner,’ I think Denis [Villeneuve] was a fantastic choice.”

It’s not clear if Scott means the entire “Alien” series is out of juice, or just its original premise, but he’s made it clear for a while now he wants to take the property in a whole new direction.

“I think the evolution of the Alien himself is nearly over, but what I was trying to do was transcend and move to another story, which would be taken over by A.I.’s. The world that the AI might create as a leader if he finds himself on a new planet. We have actually quite a big layout for the next one,” he said last month.

I don’t know….then maybe make a movie about A.I. instead of lumping those ideas into the “Alien” franchise? It seems the more Scott wants to grow his property, the further away from the beautiful simplicity of the first film it gets.

Thoughts? Let us know below.