Alien (franchise)

• 1. Introduction

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  The Alien franchise has its own holiday, and its date comes from a place name. LV-426 is the desolate planetoid in the first film. Read its number as 4/26 and you get the 26th of April, which fans celebrate as Alien Day. That small joke hides a large body of work. A script by Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett became a 1979 film. It grew into seven films in total, a 2025 television series, and a long shelf of novels, comics and video games. Five directors have shaped it, and its central threat is the Xenomorph, a hostile parasite from beyond Earth. Its human victims are usually crossing space for months or years in cryosleep, with a ruthless corporation pulling strings. How did a cheap monster script grow into a series that outlived most of its makers? What did it cost to keep its heroine alive on screen? And what happens when a franchise starts asking where its monster came from?

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• 2. Star Beast

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  Before it was Alien, the script was called Star Beast. Dan O'Bannon wanted to write a science fiction action film, and he worked it out with Ronald Shusett. Brandywine Productions, which had a distribution deal with 20th Century Fox, bought the script. The two writers expected a low-budget picture. Then Star Wars became a hit, and that success pushed Fox to spend millions instead.

  The original draft called for an all-male crew. It noted that every role could be played by a man or a woman with no major changes. Tom Skerritt was first meant to play Ripley. Then Fox president Alan Ladd Jr. and the Brandywine producers heard rumors that the studio was developing other titles with strong female leads. They decided to cast a woman as Ripley, and the role went to Sigourney Weaver. Skerritt moved over to play Captain Dallas.

  The look of the film came from several artists. Swiss painter and sculptor H. R. Giger designed the adult creature and the derelict ship. French artist Mœbius created the spacesuits. Ron Cobb supplied most of the industrial design for the sets. Ridley Scott came on as director, and he would stay tied to the series for decades, returning to direct two prequels.

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• 3. Ripley's Price

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  In 1983, James Cameron told producer David Giler that he wanted to continue the story. Fox had not thought about a sequel before then, even though the first film was a critical and financial success. When The Terminator became a box office hit in 1984, Cameron and his partner Gale Anne Hurd got approval to direct and produce. Cameron wrote the screenplay for Aliens from a story he developed with Giler and Walter Hill. It was scheduled for release in 1986.

  After that second film, Weaver did not want to return. Giler and Hill responded by commissioning a sequel with no Ripley at all. Fox president Joe Roth opposed removing her. Weaver was offered a $5 million salary and a producer credit to make Alien 3. Giler, Hill and Larry Ferguson wrote the screenplay, drawing on a story from an earlier script by Vincent Ward. The plan was to bring the series to a close by killing Ripley.

  Production went badly. The script had extensive problems, the studio had trouble finding a director, and filming began before a final script existed. Studio interference was heavy. Fans and critics did not welcome the film at first, and director David Fincher disowned it. Even so, it did well worldwide and made Fox interested in continuing. The restored Assembly Cut later earned better reviews, and some viewers regard the film as a cult classic.

  In 1996, work began on the fourth film, Alien Resurrection. The first draft had no Ripley, and Weaver again said no. She joined after an offer of an $11 million salary and more creative control, including approval of the director. The story, set 200 years after Alien 3, brought Ripley back through human cloning. Jean-Pierre Jeunet directed. Screenwriter Joss Whedon later said he thought the film had done "everything wrong" with his script. It opened in 1997 to mixed reviews and modest returns. Since then it has found fans who enjoy its camp style and dark humor.

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• 4. The Engineers

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  In 2002, the development of Alien vs. Predator took priority over a prequel idea. Ridley Scott and James Cameron had each started developing it, hoping to explore where the creature came from. The project sat dormant until 2009, when Jon Spaihts wrote the first screenplay. Scott then chose a different direction. In 2010 he hired Damon Lindelof to rewrite the story so that it centered on the creators of the Aliens rather than the Aliens themselves.

  The result was Prometheus, released in 2012. In its story, scientists Elizabeth Shaw and Charlie Holloway find a star map in the remains of several ancient Earth cultures in 2084. Accompanied by the android David 8, they reach the planet LV-223 in 2093. There they find the remains of the Engineers, an advanced civilization that had been developing a pathogenic mutagen capable of driving humanity extinct. The franchise's wider mythology goes further and says that one Engineer sacrificed himself so that his DNA could spark the origin of mankind. Prometheus grossed over $400 million worldwide and drew generally positive reviews.

  By 2014, a second prequel was under way with Scott back as director. Jack Paglen wrote the first screenplay in 2013. Michael Green and Dante Harper rewrote it. Then John Logan, Scott's collaborator on Gladiator, wrote the final version. Production on Alien: Covenant started in February 2016, and the film reached theaters on the 19th of May 2017. It earned $240 million against a production budget of $97-111 million, and reviews were lukewarm.

  Its story picks up eleven years after Prometheus. The colony ship Covenant is heading for Origae-6 when a neutrino blast wakes the crew. They follow a transmission from Shaw to a planet with no animal life. There, infected crew members give birth to a new breed called Neomorphs, and David 8 rescues them. He turns out to have brought Shaw to that world and killed everything non-floral. He then experimented on her corpse to engineer his own Aliens. In the final scene, David contacts Weyland-Yutani. He says most of the crew died in the blast, and that the ship will continue to Origae-6.

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• 5. Alien Meets Predator

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  In 1990, the filmmakers of Predator 2 placed an Alien skull in a Predator trophy case. The nod was inspired by the Dark Horse Comics series that had already joined the two creatures. Comics and video games expanded that shared universe. In 2004 it reached the screen as Alien vs. Predator, followed in 2007 by Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem.

  The first film sends a Predator mothership to Bouvetøya, an island about one thousand miles north of Antarctica. A buried pyramid lures explorers led by Charles Bishop Weyland, played by Lance Henriksen. The sole human survivor is Alexa "Lex" Woods, played by Sanaa Lathan, who allies herself with the last Predator. A Chestburster in the dead Predator's body produces a hybrid called the Predalien. The sequel follows that hybrid to Gunnison, Colorado, where a veteran Predator hunts it. A tactical nuclear bomb ends the fight. The salvaged plasma pistol is delivered to Ms. Cullen Yutani of the Yutani Corporation.

  Not everyone approved. James Cameron had been working on the plot of a fifth Alien film with another writer, and he stopped when he learned of the crossover. He said it would "kill the validity of the franchise" and compared it to "Frankenstein Meets Werewolf". He liked the final product but ruled out any future involvement with the series.

  The idea has never fully gone away. In mid-2018, Shane Black, director of The Predator, said a third crossover could still happen. Two alternate endings shot for that film, but not used, featured Breanna Watkins as a masked Ripley and as an adult Newt. In August 2024, Fede Álvarez said he would enjoy co-directing a third film with Dan Trachtenberg, a Predator director. He joked, "I'll direct a half, and he'll direct another half." Two months later, the head of Fox Studios said the studio planned to develop a crossover eventually. The 2025 film Predator: Badlands features the Weyland-Yutani corporation and the android model from Alien: Romulus. Both serve as a stepping stone toward that third film.

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• 6. Spin-Offs and Souvenirs

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  Before the first film opened, 20th Century Fox signed a deal with Kenner Products. It covered a board game called Alien Game and action figures marketed as family-friendly. Then the film came out, and parents objected to its graphic horror. The product lines were abruptly cancelled. Merchandise stayed largely stagnant until the more action-based Aliens arrived seven years later. After that, it was produced on a steady, ongoing basis.

  The toys kept stumbling. In 1996, Galoob released a Micro Machines Alien line, then stopped production the next year, largely because of the violent packaging art. In the 2010s, NECA took a leading role in making Alien action figures, many inspired by the Kenner line.

  Video games started early. The first release was Alien in 1982 for the Atari 2600, which drew heavily on Pac-Man. Aliens alone was adapted into four games. In 2014, Creative Assembly's Alien: Isolation put players in the role of Amanda Ripley, Ellen's daughter, stranded on the Alien-infested space station Sevastopol. A seven-episode animated adaptation followed on the 28th of February 2019.

  Comics took even bolder swings. Superman/Aliens appeared in 1995, with Superman's powers diminished. Batman/Aliens followed between 1997 and 2002 and placed Batman in a jungle bordering Mexico and Guatemala. Green Lantern Versus Aliens had the creatures overrunning the planet Mogo, and in 2003 Judge Dredd vs. Aliens sent Dredd into Mega-City One. In July 2020, Marvel Comics acquired the comic rights. Issue #1 of its series appeared in March 2021, written by Phillip Kennedy Johnson and drawn by Salvador Larroca.

  The smallest retelling may be Jonesy: Nine Lives on the Nostromo, a 2018 picture book. It retells the first film from the point of view of the ship's cat. At Disney's Hollywood Studios, The Great Movie Ride took riders through the Nostromo from 1989 until it closed in 2017. In February 2022, Genting SkyWorlds in Malaysia opened an Alien attraction.

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• 7. Verdicts and Afterlife

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  Critics split the series sharply. On Rotten Tomatoes, Alien and Aliens each hold 93 percent. Alien 3 sits at 44 percent, and Alien Resurrection at 56 percent. Money told a similar story. The original earned roughly $188 million worldwide on a budget of $10.7 million, while Aliens earned roughly $183 million on $17 million. Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection each took in about $160 million, but their budgets ran far higher, at $50-55 million and $60-75 million.

  Honors came anyway. The American Film Institute ranked Alien the sixth most thrilling American movie and the seventh-best science fiction film. Ripley placed eighth among heroes in its list of heroes and villains, and the Alien placed fourteenth among villains. IGN named the series the thirteenth best film franchise of all time in 2006. The Library of Congress added Alien to the National Film Registry as culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.

  From the 19th to the 22nd of March 2019, North Bergen High School in New Jersey staged Alien: The Play. It won seals of approval from Ridley Scott, James Cameron, Sigourney Weaver and Walter Hill. The mayor's non-profit foundation pledged money for more performances, and in April 2019 Weaver made a surprise appearance.

  Scholars have studied the androids. Bishop has been analyzed as a machine that follows Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics. The series' androids are Ash, Bishop and Call, and Ripley meets them with fear and suspicion. Researchers have seen in this a form of "hi-tech racism and android apartheid". Bishop confounds her expectations by redeeming himself at the end of Aliens.

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• 8. Unmade and Returning

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  In 2015, Sigourney Weaver said she wanted to play Ripley again in a story by Neill Blomkamp, reportedly titled Alien: Awakening. It would have followed Aliens and ignored the other sequels. Scott's own third prequel took priority, and the project was cancelled. In February 2019, Cameron said he was working on reviving it. In June 2020, Brandywine revealed that Walter Hill and David Giler had written a Ripley-centered script called Alien V. In September 2022, Hill confirmed that it was not moving forward. Blomkamp reused concepts from it in his short film Rakka, which also starred Weaver.

  Meanwhile, a different film was taking shape. In March 2022 it was reported that Hulu would release a new Alien film directed by Fede Álvarez. Álvarez had pitched the idea to Scott years earlier. The film was set between Alien and Aliens. Cailee Spaeny was in talks for the lead from November 2022, and production began in March 2023. Alien: Romulus opened on the 16th of August 2024 to positive reviews and grossed $350 million on an $80 million budget.

  Television arrived as well. On the 10th of December 2020, Disney announced a series for FX on Hulu with Noah Hawley as showrunner and Scott as producer. The COVID-19 pandemic delayed production, which began in Thailand in July 2023. Alien: Earth premiered on the 12th of August 2025. It takes place on Earth in the near future, in an alternate timeline outside the main canon.

  Scott announced in June 2025 that he was leaving the series. He said, "where it's going now, I think I've done enough, and I just hope it goes further." By August he said he would consider another prequel if he got an idea. In October 2025, Weaver said she had spoken with Disney and 20th Century Studios about returning, with a script by Walter Hill. Álvarez and co-writer Rodo Sayagues finished a Romulus sequel script in September 2025 but will produce with Scott rather than direct. As of March 2026, directors under consideration included Michael Sarnoski, who made Pig and A Quiet Place: Day One.

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