Ridley Scott is working on another ‘Alien’ movie with a familiar sci-fi collaborator

Ridley Scott is returning to the ‘Alien’ franchise he launched with a writer he previously collaborated with on television. 20th Century Studios has hired Aaron Guzikowski to write a new ‘Alien’ movie, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter, with Scott attached as producer. It’s a soft reboot connecting to Scott’s own ‘Prometheus’ and ‘Alien: Covenant’ rather than a direct sequel to ‘Alien: Romulus,’ and Michael Fassbender’s android David is the bridge, though the actor isn’t attached.

Their previous collaboration was ‘Raised by Wolves,’ the HBO Max sci-fi drama series that Guzikowski created following his 2013 thriller ‘Prisoners’ starring Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal. Scott executive produced the series and directed the first two episodes, marking his first episodic television directing in the U.S. Amanda Collin and Abubakar Salim played the androids Mother and Father, tasked with raising human children on the habitable planet Kepler-22b, which also centers around androids. It premiered in September 2020, was HBO Max’s highest-performing original series since its launch, and was then canceled in June 2022 after two seasons and 18 episodes.

The project is currently in development, reports TheWrap, with Scott’s Scott Free banner and Michael Pruss producing. No director has been attached besides Scott, who is not scheduled to direct. Details about the plot are being kept under wraps, and no release date has been announced. The director spoke about the project publicly this year. “I’m rewriting the next Alien film,” he told AlloCiné in August, adding that the 2024 movie was fine but needed a touch-up.

The story picks up where ‘Covenant’ left off, following David, the android played by Michael Fassbender in both of Scott’s prequels, who believes himself to be Ozymandias. This is a reference to ‘Covenant’ where David recites the poem ‘Ozymandias’ by Percy Bysshe Shelley in the climax, explaining that he is responsible for destroying the Engineers’ planet. ‘Ozymandias’ is an ancient Greek language poem, though David misattributes it to Lord Byron, which Walter, the android Fassbender also plays in the new movie, corrects.

Scott directed the original ‘Alien’ in 1979 and returned to the franchise for ‘Prometheus’ in 2012. ‘Covenant’ takes place roughly a decade after the events of that film. Ahead of its May 2017 release, Scott floated the idea of a follow-up film titled ‘Alien: Awakening.’ The franchise has since continued without him in the director’s chair, as Fede Álvarez directed ‘Alien: Romulus,’ which debuted in August 2024, with Scott serving as a producer. That movie falls between ‘Alien’ and ‘Aliens,’ while ‘Prometheus’ and ‘Covenant’ are prequels. A sequel to ‘Romulus’ was announced separately. ‘Covenant’ is the last movie in the franchise that Scott directed, more than nine years ago.