It really is an indictment of modern Hollywood that there hasn’t been a decent Alien movie since 1986. That’s 36 years in which studio interference (Alien 3), clumsy setups (Alien: Resurrection), brain-dead conceptualisation (the Alien vs Predator movies) and preposterous, portentous grandiosity (everything from Prometheus onwards) has hamstrung the long-running slasher in space saga. Three decades-plus in which film-makers of the quality of David Fincher, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Ridley Scott himself have tried and failed to come up with something that matches the gut-churning majesty of Scott’s 1979 original Alien, and its more bombastic sequel, James Cameron’s Aliens.
A TV show is expected sometime next year, with Fargo’s Noah Hawley at the helm. And this week there are reports that Mare of Easttown’s Cailee Spaeny will lead a new Alien movie from Fede Alvarez, the Uruguayan director of 2016’s coolly unorthodox horror Don’t Breathe.
