Alien: Covenant type Movie

Ridley Scott’s promising-looking Alien: Covenant won’t be the last of the franchise’s resurrection, the visionary director says. If anything, Scott is more interested than ever in continuing the saga further.

“Alien vs. Predator really f—ing nailed [the franchise] into the ground,” Scott told EW during a panel discussion at the Nat Geo Further Base Camp at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas on Friday. “I thought about that for awhile, and I said, ‘I can bring this back.’ And here’s the cause and effect: We resurrected it with Prometheus, which had two really good questions that the others weren’t asking: Who made [the aliens] and why? Prometheus set that up. [Covenant] answers ‘who and why.’ Then it leaves all kinds of questions for the next two, or three, or four. Covenant 2 is already being written as I speak right now.”

We asked him to confirm that: Two or three or four more films?

“You never know,” he said. “We’ll see how well it plays. There’s a lot of potential in this one. It’s not just what you might expect. There are a lot of interesting questions that are pretty fascinating — about creation, who are we, and where do we come from … As you develop something and make something, all kinds of notions evolve.”

Noted Covenant co-star Danny McBride: “What was so awesome about this script was that I was a humungous fan of this series and then when I got the script and it was f—ing awesome. It’s so dark. It starts in a dark place and only gets more brutal. I thought I was going to come in here and crack some jokes and then have something explode from my stomach and I was excited that I have a lot more to do than that.”

We also asked Scott about James Cameron’s recent comment suggesting the Alien franchise was getting tired due to how many other films have seemingly knocked off the concept over the years. “Watch this space,” Scott replied firmly and then repeated the phrase a second time when pressed (a.k.a. further developments are expected and more information will be given later…).

Scott also revealed the Alien: Covenant running time: roughly two hours and two minutes, putting it about the same length as Alien and Prometheus, while both are considerably shorter than Cameron’s Aliens.

Watch the latest trailer below.

Alien: Covenant opens May 19.