To celebrate Halloween this year, I decided to share an idea I had for the next Alien film, especially since it may or may not be happening since now Disney owns the entire Alien Universe.

So everyone who knows me knows I am a movie person. I love going to the movies, watching trailers, reading scripts. Would I ever direct a film or be an actor? hell to the no. I prefer leaving that to the professionals. But aside from that some of my friends and I got talking a while back about why Alien:Covenant was alright but how it could have been better. Well we started talking about a possible sequel or idea of sorts and some how some way it ended with me deciding to take a shot at writing a script. Now will I be posting the script? Maybe eventually?

THE IDEA:

The Weyland company decides to dispatch an auditing team to follow the Covenant after some discrepancies are found between what the “Walter” unit and the “Mother” are sending back to the company. Wayland sends the auditing team on the sister ship of the Prometheus, The Magellan to check on the Covenant. In the pursuit of the Covenant, the discover David and his lab and proceed to chase after him and stop his experiment and save the Covenant.

WHERE IT CAME FROM:

The idea as I said before came from my friends and I, we discussed many times over why Alien:Covenant / Prometheus worked at some points and failed at others. We went and discussed Alien, and movies like Jaws or other horror movies and what made those originals worked. One of the many ideas we also looked at was the original Predator film, a team of hunk badasses just taking names and then realizing that something is definitely one upping them and the movie slowly descends into a lord of a flies film slasher film. Or even recent movies like Infinity War, or Rogue One where the heroes have to react to blockers in front of them and they think their plan is foolproof but little do they know they are in way over their heads and where they think they are safe the enemy exploits.

The auditing team would consist of Weyland professionals, who are orphans that the company adopts over time and they deal with making sure the companies bottom line is secured and interests are kept in check. So they wouldn’t be colonial marines, but more a merc group that deal with the really tough stuff and they are composed of the best science, combat and engineers within the weyland company.

WHY IT MIGHT WORK:

One of the problems with Prometheus and Alien Covenant is that the team of people are always doing stuff that is beyond cliched in the horror genre. Slipping on blood, going alone to places, running in a straight line as something falls on you. The idea for this team is they are doing everything right and still, “fail”. One scene I always think back to is in Jurassic Park where Muldoon gets outsmarted by the raptors, or in the game Alien Isolation when the alien gets the one up on you. That to me is the ultimate in horror where you do everything right and cover all your bases but then they figure out your weakness. Such as in Aliens where they think they are safe but they somehow get past the barricades by going through the vents.

I definitely did a deep dive into the Alien Mythos(be sure to check out Alien Theory on Youtube) and also kept going back to Alien:Isolation. this game of cat and mouse with the ultimate beast. One thing that always made it very chilling was when you would try to distract the alien but it learned how you were working and would just get you. I remember my hands were sweaty and I think it being this very calm and quiet atmosphere that just played on your psychological fears. I look to a few of the new age movies that have reinvented genres, IT FOLLOWS, The Babadook, John Wick or even Infinity War. These movies were bold in their directions and took an idea and did something new with it and I think thats what the Alien series needs to do.

All Roads Lead To Oblivion – Movie Tagline

The thing that I think will definitely save a new Alien film is getting rid of the “Ripley” character. When I look back on “Alien” and think about it, I didn’t know who was going to survive. No one expected Ripley to survive, everyone was expecting Dallas to be the hero but nope they flipped that trope on its head. Also in Alien all the characters shined kind of like they did in Aliens compared to all the new movies where it focuses more on the idea of a Ripley character and not the cast as a whole.

Now usually the alien films are 4 act films, 3 acts and 1 secret act. Well I actually wrote my script in a 5 act film like the Girl with the dragon tattoo. The idea of them going to the planet, finding the destruction of the lander, and something going terrible wrong as well as finding the Covenants Walter unit. Then going back to the ship to put the pieces together makes it more like a detective story a la the Dark Knight. I feel that bringing these characters up to speed with the audience cause they know the rules, then pull the rug out from underneath them could change the way everyone looks at the alien series. So no more cliche’s do what Get Out did and make it creepy in other ways.

Also I have felt that the marketing for both Prometheus, and Alien Covenant definitely lied quite a lot to the user. I think in the video above, I saw that on television and NONE OF IT was in Covenant, also another thing that bothered me is the marketing that was done outside of the movie. I remember the Alamo drafthouse actually played all the supplemental material before the movie which was cool but the other 90% of theater goers didn’t get, and it definitely brought down the experience for some.

WHERE DOES IT LEAD?

Where does the movie lead? Well to put it honestly, I attempt to answer the questions that have popped up throughout the series. And of course wrap what I have called the “Creator” trilogy cause I felt that Prometheus and Alien Covenant was very much a deeper discussion on what it means to be a creator. The idea of having David become this creator and trying to one up the engineers when they created the humans so he attempts to create the xenomorph…but little does he know that they might have already done that…

Oh and one scene I have written one of my friends told me it was beyond disturbing and makes the backbursting scene like a PBS afternoon special. And the fact that the characters don’t do stupid stuff and that our characters are learning about this creature kind of like how Daniel’s in Alien Covenant saw the acid blood and knew they couldn’t shoot it. She was able to put 2 and 2 together, and thats what I want the next alien movie to be, a problem and a solution type of horror film.

IN CLOSING

Well here is my idea for how the Alien series could close out and then maybe Disney will let it branch out cause there are some great new ideas for the Alien Universe. If you haven’t seen the new short films done by some small indie film makers go check them out cause they are all good and the things they do with such a small budget is amazing. I really hope the next Alien film goes back to what made the films great. Being afraid of whats in space, this Lovecraftian horror that makes you never want to go into space. Bring that back and disney seriously, don’t put the Alien series on the backburner. Bring out something new pretty please. And if you like my idea…call me.