With Alien – The Eerie Creature from Another World, Ridley Scott created a milestone in the science fiction world. The film and the subsequent series were extremely well received by the audience. However, a certain film prevented the Alien series from continuing.
What is the Alien film series?
- The first part of the series was released in 1979 and was extremely well received by the audience (via Rotten Tomatoes)
- Three more parts of the main series were released in 1986, 1992, and 1997
- There are now two other films related to the prehistory: Prometheus – Dark Signs and Alien: Covenant
- Currently, Alien: Romulus is in development and is intended to be considered a kind of reboot
The Alien series takes place in a distant future. There, humanity encounters an alien species. It further reproduces after hatching by gestating its embryos in humans. Ellen Ripley is the protagonist of the main series and also plays an important role in the video games.
In the trailer, you can see what makes Alien fascinating:
Alien vs. Predator destroyed one of the two franchises
Why was the Alien franchise not continued? In a Q&A on reddit, director James Cameron wrote that he foresaw the destruction of the Alien series. Originally, he and Alien creator Ridley Scott planned to make a fifth installment in the main series.
During lunch, they discussed the details: James Cameron was to write the script, and Ridley Scott was to be the director. But then 20th Century Fox came up with the idea of a crossover, which neither of them liked.
Paul Anderson was working on Alien vs. Predator. Cameron found nothing appealing about the crossover and proclaimed that the film would ruin the franchise:
What happened was that Fox went ahead with Aliens vs. Predator, and I said: ‘I really do not recommend this, you are going to ruin the franchise, it’s like Universal with Dracula vs. Werewolf’, and then I lost interest in an Alien film.
And he was right: The film was not well received by the audience, on Rotten Tomatoes it can only achieve a rating of 22%. The sequel Alien vs. Predator 2 only reaches 12% and was a major flop as well.
As a result, he lost interest in continuing the Alien series together. James Cameron states that he wants to focus more on the Avatar series instead of collaborating on the Prometheus sequels (via reddit.com).
Ridley Scott also thought that Alien vs. Predator was a dumb idea (via hollywoodreporter.com):
I think Alien vs. Predator was a dumb idea. And I’m not sure how well it did or not, I don’t know. But somehow it brought the beast down. And I said to them: ‘Listen, you can revive it, but we need to start over from scratch and make a prequel if you want.’
Ridley Scott, Interview with The Hollywood Reporter
But for him, it’s different. After the two disastrous crossovers, he got back on board and created a prequel to the Alien series with Prometheus – Dark Signs. He will also work on Alien: Covenant and the upcoming Alien: Romulus.
The Predator had several appearances in hindsight, for example, in the following video game: The Predator comes: ‘Worst Game for PS4’ or next PC hit for Twitch?
