The Alien Franchise Officially Has a New Streaming Hunting Ground

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With news of Ridley Scott attempting another revamp of the Alien franchise having emerged in recent weeks, the movie he intends to ignore is now streaming on Peacock. Scott, who began the long-running sci-fi horror franchise in the 1970s, returned to reboot it in the 2010s. He directed two films — Prometheus and Alien: Covenant — which delivered different degrees of box-office success and received mostly positive reviews. Fans, however, were divided. The franchise spent numerous years in limbo following Covenant, before being rebooted again by director Fede Álvarez. The movie in question counted Scott as a producer, and appeared to have revitalized the franchise with positive reviews and a healthy box-office haul.

However, there has been little movement since its release in 2024. Álvarez said that he isn’t going to return to direct another installment without explaining why. More recently, it was revealed that Scott wasn’t a big fan of the film, and that he wants to return to the narrative he developed in Prometheus and Covenant. This would mean an erasure of Álvarez’s movie, which Scott described as just “okay.” The film featured a cast full of up-and-comers including Cailee Spaeny, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, and the new Black Panther, David Jonsson.

Four franchises, four completely different ways of getting underneath
your skin. This is the one built out of your particular fear, why it works so well on you, and what
it would leave behind.

Your nightmare does not wait outside the door. It waits for you
to close your eyes, which you are going to have to do eventually, because nobody has ever
won that particular argument.

• Freddy is horror’s cruellest idea: a threat that lives in the one place you cannot
  guard, cannot lock, and cannot avoid forever.
• You are the one who is fine during the film and wide awake at two in the morning. Your
  own head is where this does its damage.
• These films understood exhaustion as a horror engine. The kids on Elm Street do not lose
  because they are weak. They lose because they are tired.
• You can lock every door in the house. You still have to sleep.

Your nightmare is not really the doll. It is the face of the
person you tell, and the way they decide, very kindly, that you have imagined all of it.

• Chucky works precisely because he is absurd. That is the trap: the more accurately you
  describe him, the less anybody is going to believe you.
• You are the one shouting at the screen because the characters are not listening. You
  know that feeling from real life too.
• The franchise is at its best when the adults in the room are the real obstacle, and you
  have met those adults.
• By the time somebody finally believes you, you will have handled most of it on your own.

Your nightmare has your number, knows your name, and has almost
certainly been inside your house before. The worst part is that you already know them.

• Scream is the only one of these where the killer takes the mask off and turns out to be
  somebody who was at the party.
• You are the person who calls the twist out loud before it lands. You watch people the
  same way you watch films.
• The franchise made the rules of horror part of the plot, which means the survivors are
  the ones paying attention. You would be paying attention.
• Everybody is a suspect, including the person who just offered to walk you home.

Your nightmare is not really about you. It is about the people
asleep down the hall, and the feeling that whatever is here is not interested in leaving.

• The Conjuring films are domestic horror. The house, the family, the perfectly ordinary
  room that quietly stops feeling ordinary.
• Your instinct is to get everybody into one room. Your fear is protective rather than
  personal, which is rarer than it sounds.
• This is the one franchise where belief is the weapon. The people who come through it are
  the ones who are not alone and refuse to be.
• Whatever is here did not come for you. It came for the household, and you are the one
  standing in the hallway.

The Alien Franchise Is in Limbo Again

We’re talking, of course, about Alien: Romulus. Produced on a reported budget of $80 million, which is lower than both Prometheus and Covenant, the film grossed $350 million worldwide. This makes it the franchise’s second-highest-grossing installment, behind only Prometheus, which made more than $400 million globally. Romulus received positive reviews and is now sitting at a “Certified Fresh” 80% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. The site’s consensus reads, “Honoring its nightmarish predecessors while chestbursting at the seams with new frights of its own, Romulus injects some fresh acid blood into one of cinema’s great horror franchises.” The Alien franchise seemed to be on the path to resurgence after the film’s release; it was followed by the television show Alien: Earth, which premiered on FX only a few months later. While the show is getting a second season, Romulus will likely remain a one-off. The movie will be added to the Peacock library in November. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.

Alien: Romulus

In Alien: Romulus, a crew of space explorers lands on a distant, uncharted planet, only to uncover a horrifying secret lurking beneath the surface. As they delve deeper into the alien environment, they encounter deadly creatures and ancient ruins that hint at a terrifying history. The team’s survival becomes a desperate battle against the relentless xenomorphs, forcing them to rely on their wits and technology to escape the nightmarish world.