What’s next for the Alien franchise?

The xenomorph is back. After a decade and change of Ridley Scott's prequel series and its associated ups and downs, Fede Álvarez's gory scarefest Alien: Romulus — a down-and-dirty new spin on the franchise — has turned things around.

Romulus has earned some seriously strong reviews from critics — its Rotten Tomatoes approval score is way up at 82% — and also achieved the box office to match. In its opening weekend at multiplexes in the USA, Romulus managed a very strong $45.1m (£34.8m), despite expectations sitting at around half of that figure.

So it seems inevitable that Romulus will continue to ride good word of mouth to become one of the biggest hits in the Alien franchise. With that in mind, Hollywood's business strategy requires that we look at what might happen next.

Alien: Earth

The one thing we know for sure is happening with Alien is that the franchise will soon make its TV debut with Alien: Earth. Fargo creator Noah Hawley has put together a stand-alone series, set three decades before the events of the original Alien movie. We don't know a huge amount about the story as things stand, but we do know that Sydney Chandler will play a woman with an adult body and the consciousness of a child.

Hawley has also compared his story to the war between Edison, Westinghouse, and Tesla over electricity, which suggests that valuable new technology will hang in the balance for these characters. No doubt, the franchise's corporate baddies Weyland-Yutani will be involved.

The good news is fans won't have that long to wait for their next xenomorph fix as Hawley has said Alien: Earth should arrive in the first half of 2025. It's an FX production in the United States, which will stream on Hulu. That means UK viewers should expect to see it arrive on Disney+.

Romulus sequel

The most obvious thing for Hollywood to do, of course, is to just follow the path that has already worked and provide more of the same. In this case, that would mean continuing to follow the adventures of the surviving characters from Alien: Romulus.

Read more: Alien: Romulus director shares 'brutally honest' Ridley Scott advice that helped film (Yahoo Entertainment)

This seems like a very logical move for a studio that has just made a decent chunk of money, but also means there could be problems around the Alien timeline. Romulus slots neatly into the 57 years between Alien and Aliens, which provides a relatively narrow window for more Romulus stories.

Any sequel would likely pick up in very short order after the events of Romulus in order to ensure that Álvarez — or whoever else gets the directorial gig — can steer well clear of the Ripley stories. Unless, of course, Sigourney Weaver can be tempted into a welcome return.

Ridley Scott's prequels

The Alien franchise wouldn't exist at all without the exceptional work that Ridley Scott did on 1979's haunted house in space movie Alien. He has a lot of cachet when it comes to the world of the xenomorph, which is why he managed to convince 20th Century Fox to provide him with the cash to embark upon an ambitious series of Alien prequels, starting with 2012's Prometheus.

It's fair to say that these prequel movies, which explore the very origins of humanity as well as the birth of the xenomorph species, proved to be divisive among both audiences and critics. Prometheus and its 2017 follow-up Alien: Covenant fascinated some, while infuriating others.

Read more: Ridley Scott 'was never told or asked' about Alien and Blade Runner sequels (BANG Showbiz)

In the wake of Covenant, Scott remained bullish about continuing to make the prequels he needed to directly link this new series with Alien. But once Disney bought Fox, they decided to move ahead with Romulus instead — along with Alien: Earth — and Scott has gradually moved away on to other things. In 2020, he confessed that he might have to "rethink the whole bloody thing" if he were to make another Alien movie. We wouldn't hold out much hope for more from him.

Stand-alone stories

This is perhaps the most likely option, certainly given how Disney has treated the franchise thus far with Romulus and Earth. The Alien movies span more than 300 years, so there's plenty of real estate to fit in completely unconnected stories set within this world. Of course, fan service will inevitably be sprinkled in on occasion.

Read more: Alien: Romulus ends up being too faithful for its own good (Digital Spy)

The xenomorph is a truly classic movie monster and provides infinite storytelling possibilities for filmmakers who would relish the chance to play in this sandbox. It's entirely possible to make Alien movies forever without ever intruding on the world of Ripley, or even the Prometheus era of prequels.

You can't help but think that Disney will be very excited about that prospect. Between the X-Men, Planet of the Apes, and Alien, that Fox deal is starting to look like pocket change.

Alien: Romulus is in UK cinemas now.