Ridley talks Alien Covenant and the franchise

-You also said earlier you regret not getting an ownership stake in the IP of the Alien and Blade Runner franchises — unlike how Cameron and Spielberg have done with some of their work.

I made Alien and Blade Runner, but then I moved on. I should have locked them up — as Spielberg would have with Jurassic Park, and everything he does, and Cameron has done. Studios paid for them, but there’s a way of locking yourself into [ownership] during the negotiation. I watched Alien 2, 3 and 4 and realized, “Oh, you just ran that firmly into the ground.” Then I went back to [former 20th Century Fox chief Tom Rothman] and said, “Listen, there’s a way out. We should resurrect Alien with Prometheus.” They made half a billion dollars — by now probably a billion with all the resales. It’s not what happens at the box office, it’s what happens after the box office. Then I went back with Alien: Covenant, and that was big and ambitious and maybe too intellectual to play as well. It still did $250 million, and I still stupidly didn’t lock it up. I don’t blame me, because I’m busy. I blame a couple other people, which is why we parted company

-I have to circle back here because in terms of “running Alien into the ground,” you included “Alien 2” with 3 and 4, and, obviously, many fans (myself included) love the second movie, Cameron’s Aliens. So I caught you.

[Grins mischievously] Nah. Jim said to me, “I’ve watched fucking Alien 19 times. I can never be as frightening. The cat’s out of the bag, we’ve seen the shark. So I’m going to go more military.” And that’s what he did. But it was sweet that he said that. [Aliens] was fun. And then three and four just evaporated. And ironically, with that evaporation, they had the “help” of digital. Alien had no digital at all. It was just a guy in a rubber suit.

-I saw your 1979 original on the big screen a few years back and I could not believe how well it holds up in a theater — the visuals, the sound design, how much the ship is a living, breathing character that’s like an extension of the creature…

It’s better than any of ‘em. You can smell when it’s real.

-People keep wondering if there will be a sequel to Covenant. But it occurred to me after watching Romulus that the next movie could be both. Both films ended with ships headed to a planet we’ve never been to. There’s no reason those characters couldn’t end up in the same place.

Covenant is the best one [for a sequel] because it leaves the girl in the [cryo pod] and [Michael Fassbender’s killer android] David has alien eggs and 2,000 colonists hanging around. It’s a perfect beginning.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/ridley-scott-interview-gladiator-2-alien-blade-runner-1236049190/