After nine weeks in release, we can officially call Ridley Scott‘s Alien: Covenant a massive flop. Its $230 million worldwide gross puts the film somewhere between a $50-$100 million loss, a disturbing $170 million less than its predecessor, the 2010 Prometheus. Diminishing returns, indeed.

We’ve suggested multiple times on this site that the franchise’s rebirth is in serious trouble, even if Scott continues to talk about Alien: Awakening‘s planned spring 2018 shoot as if it’s right on schedule. Eyebrows were raised, however, when it was announced that Scott would be helming Getty kidnapping movie All the Money in the World and then drug lord drama The Cartel. Where’s room for Awakening, which would be shooting in early 2018 for release in 2019? There isn’t.

In a new article at THR, the site’s sources tell them that “Fox will have to reassess two intended sequels Scott has pitched” while he is off helming the other two aforementioned films.

Reassess…

This could mean a wide variety of things but one thing we previously pointed out is that Scott is not only a master at coming in on budget but he can trim the fat in ways no other filmmaker can. This is what gave Fox the initial confidence to let Scott go wild with his planned Alien prequels that will (hopefully) eventually bridge directly into his 1979 masterpiece. “Reassess” could directly relate to the next sequel’s budget, forcing Scott to go back to the drawing board and revisit the allegedly completed screenplay. It’s doable but if we’re to look at Covenant as a comp, Alien: Awakening would probably need to have a budget of approximately $50-75 million to at least guarantee a recoup. Again, doable.

Then again…

Maybe Fox is “reassessing” whether or not they even want to continue forth with Scott’s planned trilogy (did the plan to de-aging Sigourney Weaver scare them?)? It’s possible that they kill the franchise dead with Covenant and we’ll never find out how that Engineer ship crashed on the planet that sends Ripley into a life of chaos. That would suck but at least there will probably be novels or comics that bridge the two together.

Another card Fox could play is to finally give the fans what they truly want: a proper Alien sequel with Sigourney Weaver back as Ellen Ripley. Neill Blomkamp has been blowing up the Web with his impressive self-financed shorts that harken back to films such as Alien and Predator. He’s always been primed for his planned Aliens sequel, showing that he’s more than a fan in his body of work, which includes District 9, Elysium and Chappie. Weaver has openly talked about how she always wanted to take Ripley back to the Xenomorph home planet to “kill them all”, what could be better than a reunion with Michael Biehn in the ultimate Alien fan film?

What do you Bloody Disgusting readers want to see next, if anything at all?