In terms of divisive movies in long-running franchises, it’s hard to think of a bigger example than 2012’s Prometheus. It represented Ridley Scott’s long-awaited return to the Alien franchise and promised us a prequel that would answer questions fans had for years about the original sci-fi/horror classic. To this day, the film has its ardent defenders, as well as intense detractors. Scott has now reflected a bit on the film and, frankly, he doesn’t have too many nice things to say about it.
Scott recently sat down with Deadline to promote Gladiator II. During the chat, he touched on his history with the Alien franchise, which saw James Cameron take over with Aliens, leading to a string of directors making increasingly disappointing sequels. Then, Scott got together with writer Damon Lindelof to cook up Prometheus. As the filmmaker explains, there was a lot going on that got in the way of allowing this film to be as good as it should have been, in his eyes.
“I saw this bloody film that they keep playing every night somewhere on the globe, on all the platforms. There’s life in the best, yet. That’s why I sat down with the great writer [Damon] Lindelof, and we reconstructed a resurrection of the era, with Prometheus, and how it evolved from Alien. But we were asleep at the wheel. My advisors, who frankly no longer are with me, were asleep at the wheel, certainly. And I partly blame myself, except I was busy making other films. And so it was let go and it shouldn’t have been. When you resurrect, you better put your nail into the wall.”
Again, it really is a matter of who you ask but there are plenty of fans of this franchise who would agree with that. On the other hand, Prometheus is still the highest-grossing Alien movie at the box office in terms of raw dollars, with this year’s Alien: Romulus taking the number two spot in that category. So it was popular in theaters and, anecdotally, it does seem like quite a few people have come around to it in the years since its initial release.
Some of that might have to do with Scott’s follow-up, Alien: Covenant, which was more of a proper Alien movie, and one that helped make Prometheus make a little more sense, in retrospect. Ultimately, it was Scott trying to take back control of his baby after he let it go decades earlier. In the same interview, he explained that Aliens being as good as it was helped take the sting out of him not making that sequel.
“Yes. Jim told me, listen, I can’t get it as frightening because you’ve just shown the beast enough that it’s no longer fresh. But it works, still. He said, I’m going to go military. That’s what Jim said. I said, gotcha. Jim’s was a very good sequel. Three and four became more and more difficult. As it unrolled, I thought, oh God, they’re f*cking it up. And then from that, honestly, I said okay, that’s done.”
Meanwhile, Scott is currently developing a new Alien film, which is in all likelihood the already confirmed sequel to Romulus. There’s also the upcoming Alien: Earth TV show, which is coming to FX next year. Scott serves as a producer on the series. So his time in this universe is far from over, at the ripe young age of 86.
For more, check out the recently released, brief new teaser for Alien: Earth.
