Rid­ley Scott is already work­ing on the sequel to Alien: Covenant

Rid­ley Scott isn’t wast­ing any time get­ting start­ed on the next instal­ment of the Alien fran­chise. With Alien: Covenant only just arriv­ing in the­atres, Scott revealed to IGN UK that he’s cur­rent­ly work­ing on the screen­play for its sequel, which is to head into pro­duc­tion in 2018.

“We’re writ­ing [a sequel] now, as we speak. I’ll be film­ing that with­in 14 months,” Scott said. He also revealed more details about Neill Blomkamp’s mys­te­ri­ous­ly scrapped Alien sequel, which he sug­gests was to be titled ​‘Awak­en­ing’.

“They want­ed to do Alien, er, Awak­en­ing – Neill Blomkamp… I said fine. I was going to be the pro­duc­er. If I could have, I would have,” Scott has revealed. ​“Except I do ques­tion – why have both [Blomkamp’s Alien and Scott’s Alien] out there? It seems like shoot­ing your big toe off – it doesn’t make sense. But they didn’t go for­ward with it, Fox, so I just kind of kept out of it.”

Dis­cussing the future of the fran­chise, Scott made it clear that we can look for­ward to him keep­ing hold of the direc­to­r­i­al reins for a while longer, just as long as each sequel main­tain the high stan­dard expect­ed of him. ​“It’s good when it’s good,” he said, ​“if the sequel’s good, then it’s worthwhile.”

The 2018 pro­duc­tion date of the (as yet unti­tled) Covenant fol­low-up might allow the direc­tor time to squeeze in one of the many oth­er projects he cur­rent­ly has in development.

He’s attached to Sony’s All the Mon­ey in the World, a Get­ty kid­nap­ping dra­ma, in which Natal­ie Port­man is rumoured to be cast, and he’s also optioned Don Winslow’s nov­el ​‘The Car­tel’, which Leonar­do DiCaprio is rumoured to be inter­est­ed in. In any case, Scott is look­ing at a busy 2018, and we can’t wait to see what he’s got in store.

Excit­ed for the release of Alien: Covenant? Read our review and let us know your thoughts @LWLies