Though he’s currently focused on getting “All The Money In The World” out on time, Ridley Scott always has his biggest claim to fame, the “Alien” series, on his mind. And while his most recent installment of “Alien: Covenant” provided all the face-hugging, chest-bursting madness fans could handle as the Xenomorphs’ origins were revealed, Scott thinks that it may be time to move on from the deadly extra-terrestrials.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Scott says he’s planning to do another “Alien” film, but with a much different approach. He hints that the next installment may focus on another topic that his sci-fi films have frequently explored: artificial intelligence.
“People say, ‘You need more alien, you need more face pulling, need more chest bursting,’ so I put a lot of that in ‘Covenant’ and it fitted nicely. But I think if you go again you need to start finding another solution that’s more interesting. I think AI is becoming much more dangerous and therefore more interesting.”
Why does he think AI is getting dangerous? Because he saw an experiment on Facebook where two androids began communicating with each other in a way humans couldn’t understand.
“It already invented a f–ing language!” he exclaimed. “And they couldn’t decipher what the language was so they had to switch them off. What was said and where’s it gone? They could have already implemented something we don’t know.”
Scott’s fans know that sentient AI make up the cornerstone of some of the director’s most famous movies. “Blade Runner” uses artificially made humans, or Replicants, to explore the nature of humanity, and the “Alien” films have featured famous androids like Ian Holm’s Ash, Lance Henriksen’s Bishop, and most recently, Michael Fassbender’s twin androids David and Walter. David has become the core of Scott’s recent return to “Alien,” so don’t be surprised if he or others like him take center stage when Scott goes back to outer space.
In the meantime, you can watch Scott’s next film, “All The Money In The World,” in theaters Dec. 22.