Will Four Alien Prequels Kill Aliens Sequel?

I said a while back that Fox’s decision to ‘postpone’ Neil Blomkamp’s Aliens sequel redo was probably the death knell for that movie.  The problem introduced for his movie was that if Alien: Covenant was a success, they might just go ahead with another Prometheus follow up.  And if it was a failure, they might say ‘well no-one is interested’ and cancel it using that logic.

Now, it seems that there isn’t going to be two Alien prequels, but four.

Ridley Scott tells The Sydney Morning Herald that the next film is already written, there’s already plans for a 2018 film shoot, and he’s ready for for more films:

“You’ve got to assume to a certain extent success and from that you’d better be ready. You don’t want a two-year gap. So I’ll be ready to go again next year…. If you really want a franchise, I can keep cranking it for another six. I’m not going to close it down again. No way.”

Scott wants a trilogy and the article also tells us that Prometheus won’t be part of it.  Essentially, we’re getting four Alien prequels?

“What we did really well on Prometheus, considering that it was a ground zero idea that was starting all over again, was I discovered that people do have an appetite for the alien and what he means and his evolution – the egg, the facehugger, the chestburster as we call them. People still want to see it. So I return to a little bit of that but not wholeheartedly; there’s a lot in here which is new as well… We go from Prometheus into both worlds of the original Alien and a little bit of Prometheus. Prometheus was about who and why? This is getting closer to who designed it and for what reason.”

What this could mean is that Alien3 V2.0 may be pushed back, beyond oblivion.  I mean if they shoot another two movies, by the time they’re done with the prequel arc Sigourney Weaver and Michael Biehn are going to look old as fuck, more so.

But there’s also a chance of them branching out and filming something concurrently.  I don’t know though, Ridley Scott seems to have gotten all clingy and possessive or something… ego?