Ridley Scott talks Alien: Covenant and returning to the “roots” of Alien

In space, no-one can hear you scream – except Ridley Scott.

This summer is arguably the most packed we have ever seen in modern cinema with a new big-budget film opening almost every week which has stretch the “summer” forward to March with Logan, Beauty and the Beast and Kong: Skull Island flying out of the traps first. There is no end to product but one of those that many are slightly cautious of is Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant, which arrives in May.

After Scott returning to the Alien universe with 2012’s under-whelming Prometheus, the director is turning his attentions are little more directly to the history of the space creature with the new film and has promised that the film will answer many questions as well as connect his two prequels with his 1979 classic.

Speaking to Collider, Scott said that he wanted to answer the question of “who made” the aliens and that some expectations of the film might not be what you expect, saying:

“It shouldn’t have really ended, so we’ve come back with a very simple idea. Who made them? No one ever asked that question. [Alien] was just about there it is; it exists. And this is what it is. Seven guys and gals in a steel hull. Frankly, the very old idea of The Old Dark House. Who’s gonna die next? The fundamental basis of Alien was a pretty old B-movie, but because of the cast and talent involved it came out an A+ movie. So we’ve reinvented the idea of Alien, I think, which is that Covenant gets us a step closer to who and why was this thing designed to make human beings. And if you think it’s them [the Engineers], you’re dead wrong.”

In addition to Scott, the same site also spoke to special effects supervisor Neil Corbould on the set of the film and he said that we can expect both new and old creatures and that the director did listen to some of fans who were a little disappointed by Prometheus:

“He did listen to the criticism, if you like, of [Prometheus] and people wanted more aliens. The other thing as well is that certain studios want to make a certain movie, and sometimes your hands are tied for horror. If you’re making it for a PG-13 or 15, your hands are tied to give proper horrors. But when the gloves are off and it’s 18 or R-rated, then you can make the movie exactly what you want — with more aliens. He listened to the audience, that they want more aliens — they’re gonna get a lot more aliens. More than they probably anticipated.”

With the new trailers promising lots of claustrophobic horror and gore, will we finally get the worthy follow-up to both Scott’s film and James Cameron Aliens? We’ll have to wait until May 19th to find out.