Ridley Scott is a busy man, and his schedule doesn’t look to be getting any lighter for the foreseeable future. The Alien filmmaker is currently out doing publicity work for his upcoming Biblical epic, Exodus: Gods and Kings, but he found time to update everyone on the status of two highly-anticipated sequels: Prometheus 2 and Blade Runner 2. The Prometheus update is sure to cause debate in geek circles, though, since Scott reveals some interesting things about Alien’s beloved Xenomorphs’ future.
Scott chatted with Yahoo! Movies recently, and gave us a State of the Union address on where both films stand. Each project appears to be moving forward at a steady clip, with the sequel to his 1982 cyberpunk classic Blade Runner seems to be further along the pre-production path.
"It’s on the charts," Scott says of the follow-up film, which reunites audiences with Harrison Ford’s Replicant hunter. "I can’t say when that would be yet, because of [Ford’s] thing with Star Wars. It’s a sequel – it’s what happens next. It’s quite surprisingly clever."
Things appear to be more in flux with Prometheus 2, the sequel to the 2012 film that was marketed as a prequel to Alien, yet largely divided fans. Scott describes the process of getting the film to the screen as "evolving", adding that he has an astonishing 15 drafts of the script going currently and that’s he excited about making the film.
Part of the reason Prometheus divided fans was because many expected it to feature more of Alien’s Xenomorph monsters. While no one thought they would be front and center in the sci-fi film, some were disappointed that they took a backseat to everything else in Scott’s lushly shot feature. The bad news is, this doesn’t look to be changing for the sequel.
"The beast is done. Cooked. I got lucky meeting Giger all those years ago. It’s very hard to repeat that…But after four I think it wears out a little bit. There’s only so much snarling you can do. I think you’ve got to come back with something more interesting."
Apparently, even Sir Ridley would like to forget about the Aliens vs. Predator movies…
As to what that "something more interesting" might be, Scott offers up a few hints (stop here if you’d prefer to avoid any possible spoilers for Prometheus 2).
The filmmaker reveals that he thinks Prometheus’ engineers were a good starting point, and that we’ll probably have to go with Shaw and David to find out what happens next. With 15 versions of the script going currently, that could change completely, but it’s a hint at least.
Are you okay with Scott’s insistence that he’s essentially done with Xenomorphs, or were you holding out hope that they’d eventually figure into the greater tapestry of the tale he’s weaving? What do you want to see in a Blade Runner sequel? Leave us a comment and let us know what you’re thinking.
