At the end of 2017's Alien: Covenant, after most of its crew had been killed, the Covenant continued its journey to Origae-6. One of the two survivors, Katherine Waterston's Janet Daniels, realized that the villainous David had tricked her just as she went into stasis. It's an exciting cliffhanger and set up for another Alien movie, which Katherine Waterston is down for, even if she is in the dark about the future of the franchise. She said:
I don't live in Hollywood, and I'm always usually the last person to know even what's going on in my own career. So, [I'm] probably not the best person to ask. But I did get some sense of where they thought they might like to take it when we were shooting Covenant, and it sounded really interesting. I would be absolutely game to do more if they wanted to have me. But that's all I know. I'm sure they've changed their minds anyway.
Katherine Waterston, who is no stranger to big franchises as one of the stars of the Fantastic Beasts franchise, would be on board to do another Alien film if that option presented itself. She also seems to have some inclination of what the idea was for the sequel to Alien: Covenant and was intrigued by it, but admits that she isn't tuned in to that and knows that things could have changed regarding such a project.
It's hard to know if Katherine Waterston's Daniels would have had much of a role in the Alien: Covenant sequel, given that film's ending and David essentially winning and neutralizing her. Also, Noomi Rapace's Elizabeth Shaw was the protagonist of Prometheus, but she was basically killed off-screen prior to the events of Covenant. So who knows if a similar fate would be in store for Daniels. Still, it would be cool to see her get a chance to give David what's coming to him.
Ridley Scott's Alien prequel series, for better or worse, has basically become about artificial intelligence and Michael Fassbender's David. We've heard different things about where the Alien: Covenant sequel, tentatively titled Alien: Awakening, was going to take the story, like seeing the Engineers return to take vengeance for David's genocide, but nothing's official and things could have changed.
Although Katherine Waterston admitted to The Playlist that she's the last person to know what's going on in her career and much less the Alien franchise, she's not alone. Alien: Covenant did not perform up to expectations financially and the future of the franchise, at least in its current iteration, is very much in question.
On top of that, the Disney-Fox deal is looming, and once it is complete, Disney will own the rights to the Alien franchise. It is a popular brand with name recognition, so you have to imagine the Mouse will want to take advantage of that eventually, but Disney may have entirely different ideas about what to do with Alien that may not continue the story Ridley Scott was telling.
We'll keep you updated on the future of the Alien franchise when we hear something new, and in the meantime, you can check out all of the other movies that are definitely happening in our 2019 release schedule.
