Alien: Romulus is endemic of the current state of Hollywood sequels. It's both new and old. It's new in the sense that the keys to the castle are being given to a younger filmmaker in Fede Alvarez. It's old in the sense that it's going to be set between the events of the first two Alien films (aka the most adored ones). Makes sense, from a marketing perspective.
For being such a respected franchise, getting Alien sequels made has been a tall order, historically. Many of them have never seen the light of day, even with the involvement of established names like Ridley Scott and James Cameron. As such, we thought it'd be fun to dig into the vault and look at the Alien sequels that almost where. We also noted why they weren't.
Alien 3 (Renny Harlin's version)
Six years passed between the release of Aliens (1986) and Alien 3 (1992), but the delay wasn't for lack of effort. A screenplay for the third installment was written the year after Aliens proved to be a hit with audiences, and Renny Harlin was brought on as director. Harlin wanted to differentiate his film from its predecessors, and the original story involved Xenomorphs making their way to Earth.
Harlin and screenwriter William Gibson wanted to use the titular creators as a Cold War allegory, but the dissolution of global struggle in the late 1980s led them to scrap the concept. The decision was then made to shift the focus to a prison planet, which Harlin felt was too similar to the look and feel of previous installments. He left the film, and Gibson's screenplay was heavily rewritten.
Alien 3 was eventually directed by David Fincher, with a script by Walter Hill, Larry Ferguson and David Giler. It's got its defenders and its merits, but it failed to reach the heights of the first two films.
Prometheus 3 (and 4)
Ridley Scott took the Alien franchise into unexpected territory with 2012's Prometheus. It was a box office hit, but it also divided fans given the lack of Xenomorph action and newfound emphasis on the creation of man. Fans had to wait a whopping five years before getting a sequel, Alien: Covenant, but once again, Scott defied expectations.
While some were expecting a proper sequel, Covenant blended the existentialism with the gore of the original Alien film, making for an uneven watch. The film also underperformed at the box office, which meant Scott's plans for another sequel were put on indefinite hiatus.
In 2015, the director told The Playlist that he'd planned to make at least four Prometheus films, and that the final installment would tie directly into the 1979 original. Given how busy Scott has been in the last decade, however, and the decision to hit the reboot button with Romulus, we can say pretty definitively say that Prometheus 3 is as dead as Peter Weyland.
Alien 5 (James Cameron's version)
Yes, big Jim almost came back to helm another Alien film. He wrote and directed one of the most respected sequels of all time with Aliens, so it makes sense that 20th Century Fox would try to catch lightning in a bottle twice. Cameron actually started writing a screenplay for Alien 5 in the early 2000s, but things fell apart when the studio approached him with the premise for Alien vs Predator.
Cameron felt like the crossover would cheapen the Alien brand, and walked away from the film. He did, however, admit that he liked Paul W.S. Anderson's Alien vs Predator (2004) much more than he expected. The director was asked whether he'd consider helming another Alien film in 2016, but he told Cinemablend that his primary cinematic focus is on Avatar.
"I’ve got my own kind of alien world that I’m enslaved to now with the Avatar films," Cameron noted. "So I can pretty much rule that out."
Alien 5 (Neill Blomkamp's version)
Neill Blomkamp wanted to do for Alien what David Gordon Green did for Halloween. The latter ignored the sequels that were made about Michael Myers, and made a direct follow up to the 1978 original. Blomkamp's Alien 5 planned to ignore the events of the previous two installments and continue the story of Alien and Aliens.
The director's plans, which were unveiled back in 2013, would see the return of beloved characters like Newt and Hicks. It would also see Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver, in her original form, which is notable given that the character was subsequently killed and cloned at different points.
Blomkamp's version picked up steam for a couple years, but the director confirmed that Alien 5 had been put on hold by 20th Century Fox in 2015. Ridley Scott's decision to make Prometheus films took priority, and by the time he was finished (see Covenant above), the studio had lost interest in the Alien 5 concept.
In 2023, Blomkamp told Uproxx that he'd moved on as well. "It’s hard to define how little I care about what happens with Alien," he asserted.