Alien (franchise)

After completion of the film Dark Star (1974), writer Dan O'Bannon wanted to develop some of the ideas and create a science-fiction action film. Provisionally called Memory, screenwriter Ronald Shusett collaborated with O'Bannon on the project, adding elements from a previous O'Bannon script, Gremlins, which featured gremlins causing mayhem aboard a World War II bomber. The duo finished the script, initially titled Star Beast — it was changed to Alien after O'Bannon noticed the number of times the word "alien" occurred in the script.[8][9] Their script was sold to Brandywine Productions, which had a distribution deal with 20th Century Fox. The writers anticipated a low-budget film, but 20th Century Fox was inclined to invest millions, thanks to the success of Star Wars.[10] The original script featured an all-male crew, including Ripley character, with Tom Skerritt attached, with the caveat that the roles were interchangeable for men or women. When Fox president Alan Ladd Jr. and the producers at Brandywine were made aware of Fox working on other titles with strong female leads, Skerritt was cast as Captain Dallas and Ripley was recast with Veronica Cartwright, before director Ridley Scott opted for Sigourney Weaver shortly before filming.[8][11]

Though Alien was successful, Fox did not consider a sequel until James Cameron expressed his interest to producer David Giler in 1983. After the box office success of Cameron's The Terminator in 1984, Cameron was given approval to direct and produce Aliens.[14] The third film in the series, Alien 3, faced a mired production, with extensive script difficulties, trouble securing a director, production beginning prior to the completion of a final script, as well as studio interference against the director selected to helm the film, music video filmmaker David Fincher.[19][20] Though Alien 3 was not a critical success, the film was an international box office hit and piqued Fox's interest in continuing the franchise. The fourth film, Alien Resurrection, began production in 1996, with Jean-Pierre Jeunet directing and Weaver receiving more creative control and an enhanced salary.[21] The film was released in 1997, to mixed to negative reviews and modest box office returns, marking the last installment in the original series to date.[18] The story of the original series focuses on Ellen Ripley's struggle for survival against the Aliens, alongside several groups of comrades, while also preventing Weyland-Yutani from obtaining the creatures. After sacrificing herself, Ripley returns two hundred years later as a human-Alien hybrid clone called Ripley 8, retaining genetic memory, but with a different personality and superhuman abilities.

On its way back to Earth, the commercial spaceship USCSS Nostromo is diverted to a desolate planetoid by a cryptic signal from a derelict alien spacecraft. While exploring the alien ship, one of the Nostromo's crewmen discovers the remains of the ship's pilot and also a large chamber that contains thousands of egg-like objects. One of the eggs releases a creature that attaches itself to his face and renders him unconscious. The others break quarantine to bring him back aboard the ship. The parasite dies and the crewman wakes up, seemingly fine. Soon afterwards, an alien organism bursts from his chest and grows extremely rapidly into a terrifying eight-foot (about 2.5 meters) tall creature that starts killing off the crew.

After 57 years in hypersleep, the sole survivor of the USCSS Nostromo, Ellen Ripley, awakens aboard a medical space station orbiting Earth. Her story of the Alien terror she encountered is disbelieved and she learns that the planetoid from the first film (now designated as LV-426 or Acheron) is now home to a terraforming colony. When contact with the colony is lost, Ripley, against her better judgment and to regain her pilot's license, hesitantly accompanies a squad of high-tech Elite Colonial Marines aboard the spaceship USS Sulaco to investigate. Once there, they discover the colonists have been wiped out after finding the derelict alien ship (and its deadly cargo) from the first film.

Due to a fire aboard the USS Sulaco, an escape pod carrying the survivors of the second film is automatically jettisoned. It crash-lands on the refinery/prison planet Fiorina "Fury" 161, but Ripley is the only one to survive the crash. Unbeknownst to her, an Alien Facehugger was also aboard the ship. Before long, a full-sized Alien is then loose in the prison, killing the inmates and staff. Ripley also discovers there is an Alien queen growing inside her, and must not only kill the rampaging Alien but also herself in order to save humanity.

Two hundred years after the events of the previous film, several clones of Ellen Ripley (including the alien queen she was carrying) are produced. The Alien Queen is surgically removed from her body as the United Systems Military hopes to breed Aliens to study on the spaceship USM Auriga, using human hosts kidnapped and delivered to them by a group of mercenaries on board a transport starship called the Betty. The Aliens escape their enclosures, while Ripley 8 (a clone mixed with Alien DNA) and the mercenaries attempt to escape and destroy the Auriga before it reaches Earth.

Development of a prequel story began in the early 2000s when both Ridley Scott and James Cameron started to develop ideas for a story that would explore the origins of the Alien. In 2002, the development of Alien vs. Predator had taken precedence and the prequel project remained dormant until 2009. Jon Spaihts wrote the first screenplay for the project, but Scott then opted for a different direction and hired Damon Lindelof in 2010, to rewrite the script into a story that focused on the creators of the Aliens, rather than the Aliens themselves. The film, titled Prometheus, was released in 2012 to box office success and lukewarm critical reception.[22][23]

By 2014, development on the second prequel was underway, with Scott returning as director.[24] The film's screenplay was initially written by Jack Paglen in 2013, but was subsequently rewritten by Michael Green and Dante Harper, before Scott's collaborator from Gladiator, John Logan, wrote the final version.[25][26] The film, titled Alien: Covenant, commenced production in February 2016 and was released on May 19, 2017.[27][28] Alien: Covenant was a box office disappointment, grossing $240.9 million worldwide against a production budget of $97 million, while also receiving lukewarm critical reviews.[29][30] The story of the prequel series centers around the android David 8, and two crews he accompanies on expeditions to meet the mysterious Engineers.

Some 30 years before the events of Alien, scientists Elizabeth Shaw and Charlie Holloway discover a star map among the remnants of several ancient Earth cultures. Accompanied by David 8 and hoping to discover the origins of humanity, they journey aboard the spaceship USCSS Prometheus and arrive on the distant planet LV-223 in the Zeta² Reticuli system, the same region of space in which the planetoid LV-426 from Alien is found. There they discover the ancient remains of an advanced civilization, called the Engineers (the same race as the dead pilot from the derelict ship in Alien), who were developing biological weapons in the form of a pathogenic mutagen which could have driven the human race extinct. The horrors they encounter result in the loss of the crew except for David and Shaw.

Eleven years after the events of Prometheus, the colony ship USCSS Covenant, carrying thousands of colonists and hundreds of human embryos in cryo-stasis, makes its way towards the planet Origae-6. The crew is awakened by a neutrino blast and intercepts a transmission sent from Shaw, which they decide to trace to an apparently habitable Engineer home world (referred to as Planet 4), devoid of all non-floral life. When several crew members are infected by the same mutagen encountered by the Prometheus crew and give birth to a new breed of Alien, the Neomorphs, the android David 8 rescues them. It is revealed that he brought Shaw to the planet, where he killed all non-floral life and began experimenting on Shaw's corpse to engineer his own breeds of Aliens. His motivations to replace human life with Aliens is made apparent, and with the birth of yet another new breed of Alien, a terraforming expert named Daniels and the remaining crew are forced to flee from the world. After disposing of the Aliens chasing them, the crew members return to the Covenant and are put back into cryosleep by someone they believe to be their shipboard synthetic, Walter. Only when Daniels is put in her cryopod does she realize that Walter has been replaced by the identical David. With the crew, colonists, and embryos at his mercy, David contacts Weyland-Yutani back on Earth, stating that while the majority of the crew was killed in the neutrino blast, they would be continuing on towards Origae-6.[5]

In 2012 and 2017 respectively, Ridley Scott directed eight short films to tie in with the releases of Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. In July 2018, it was reported that 20th Century Fox had joined forces with Tongal to produce short films, intended to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the Alien franchise.[40][41][42] By March 2019, the details of the short films were released. Tongal co-founder and CEO James DeJulio stated that the joint-production is "reflective of Tongal's mission to bring creative opportunities to the next generation of talent." The shorts were released weekly on IGN, after which they were uploaded to the Alien Universe web page, as well as all Alien social media pages on May 5 of the same year. All six of the short films premiered at the Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle.[39] The 40th anniversary short films are available as a Movies Anywhere-exclusive bonus feature accompanying the digital release of Alien.

In the mid-1990s, screenwriter Stuart Hazeldine wrote a treatment titled Alien: Earthbound. Fox executives were impressed by the script, having read it after Alien Resurrection had entered post-production.[43] Joss Whedon had written an Earth-set script for Alien 5, but Sigourney Weaver was not interested and wanted it to be set on the original planetoid. She has remained open to a role on the condition that she likes the story.[44] Before 20th Century Fox greenlit Alien vs. Predator, James Cameron had been collaborating on the plot for a fifth Alien film with another writer, but ceased work on learning of the crossover. Cameron stated that the crossover would "kill the validity of the franchise," and that "it was Frankenstein Meets Werewolf" – like "Universal just taking their assets and starting to play them off against each other." Although he liked the final product, he ruled out any future involvement with the series.[45] In late 2008, Weaver hinted in an interview with MTV that she and Scott were working on an Alien spin-off film, which would focus on the chronicles of Ellen Ripley rather than on the Aliens, but the continuation of Ripley's story has not materialized.[46]

Sigourney Weaver has expressed her interest in returning to the role of Ripley with Neill Blomkamp's Alien 5 story (purportedly titled Alien: Awakening) which would tie into the first two Alien films by taking place after Aliens and foregoing involvement with the other two sequels.[47][48] This was canceled in favor of Scott's own untitled third prequel (also purportedly titled Alien: Awakening),[49][50] which was later also canceled following the disappointing box office results of Alien: Covenant.[51] In February 2019, James Cameron stated that he was working on reviving Blomkamp's project.[52] In June 2020, Brandywine Productions revealed that a screenplay for a new installment in the original series called "Alien V", centered around Ripley, had been written by Walter Hill and David Giler.[53]

After the acquisition of 21st Century Fox by The Walt Disney Company, it was officially confirmed at the 2019 CinemaCon that future Alien films are in development.[54] In May 2019, Variety reported that the third prequel film was reportedly "in the script phase", with Ridley Scott attached to direct.[55][56]

In 2014, Sega published the video game Alien: Isolation. On February 20, 2019, Axis Animation reported that a seven-episode animated adaptation of Alien: Isolation was in development.[65] On February 27, 2019, IGN confirmed that the seven-part Alien: Isolation - The Digital Series would be exclusively released to IGN on February 28, 2019. The series, developed by 20th Century Fox, in conjunction with Reverse Engineering Studios and DVgroup, was created using a combination of brand-new scenes animated from scratch, cinematics taken directly from the original game, and digital recreations of first-person scenes from the game. Alien: Isolation is set in 2137, 15 years after the events of Alien and 42 years prior to Aliens, following Amanda Ripley, who is investigating the disappearance of her mother, Ellen Ripley, as she is transferred to the space station Sevastopol to find the flight recorder of the Nostromo only to discover an Alien has terrorized the station, killing the vast majority of the crew.[66] Andrea Deck reprises her role as Amanda Ripley.

List indicator(s)

• This table shows the recurring characters and the actors who have portrayed them throughout the franchise.
• A dark grey cell indicates the character was not in the film, or that the character's presence in the film has not yet been announced.
• A ^Y indicates an appearance as a younger version of a pre-existing character.
• A ^C indicates a cameo appearance.
• A ^P indicates an appearance in onscreen photographs only.
• A ^D indicates an appearance in deleted scenes only.
• A ^V indicates a voice role.
• A ^U indicates an uncredited role.
• A ^M indicates a motion-capture role.

Alien was nominated for two Academy Awards, winning for Best Visual Effects. Aliens received seven nominations, including a Best Actress nomination for Sigourney Weaver, and won for Best Visual Effects and Best Sound Effects. Alien 3 was nominated for Best Visual Effects. Prometheus was also nominated for Best Visual Effects. Alien was also inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress for historical preservation as a film which is "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."[80][81]

The American Film Institute ranked Alien as the sixth most thrilling American movie and seventh-best film in the science fiction genre, and in the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains list, Ripley was ranked eighth among the heroes, and the Alien was fourteenth among the villains. IGN listed Alien as the thirteenth best film franchise of all time in 2006.[82]

"Alien Day", April 26, has become the fan celebration day for the Aliens franchise. The date derives from LV-426, the "426" converting to "4/26" or "April 26".[83] On Alien Day 2016, Neill Blomkamp released new art for his concept of Alien 5,[84] and the Audible Original audio play adaptation of Alien: Out of the Shadows was released. On Alien Day 2017, 20th Century Fox released "The Crossing" prologue short film for Alien: Covenant,[85] and the Audible Original audio play adaptation of Alien: River of Pain was released.

From March 19 to 22, 2019, North Bergen High School (New Jersey, US) staged an adaptation of Alien entitled Alien: The Play, which was widely praised and granted seals of approval by Ridley Scott, James Cameron, Sigourney Weaver and Walter Hill. In the aftermath of the play's popularity and approval, North Bergen Mayor Nick Sacco's non-profit foundation pledged funds for more performances.[86]

The Bishop character has been the subject of literary and philosophical analysis as a high-profile android character conforming to science fiction author Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics and as a model of a compliant, potentially self-aware machine.[87] The portrayal of androids in the Alien series—Ash in Alien, Bishop in Aliens and Alien 3, and Call (Winona Ryder) in Alien Resurrection (1997)—has been studied for its implications relating to how humans deal with the presence of an "Other", as Ripley treats them with fear and suspicion, and a form of "hi-tech racism and android apartheid" is present throughout the series.[88][89] This is seen as part of a larger trend of technophobia in films prior to the 1990s, with Bishop's role being particularly significant as he redeems himself at the end of Aliens, thus confounding Ripley's expectations.[90]

The Ripley impact crater on Pluto's moon Charon was given its name in honor of Ellen Ripley.

Alien print media has been published since shortly before the release of the original eponymous film, in 1979. The full library of these literary works include novelizations of the films, original content that expand upon the fictional universe, comics and companion books for both the cataloging of in-universe elements and supplemental works concerning the development of the franchise. These include works by special effects company Amalgamated Dynamics Incorporated (ADI), which assisted with the effects in Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection.

Several novelizations of each of the six films and some comic books as well as original canonical novels based on the franchise have been released. The original novels include Alien: Out of the Shadows, Alien: Sea of Sorrows, Alien: River of Pain, marketed as the "Canonical Alien Trilogy" and the short story collection Aliens: Bug Hunt. Out of the Shadows and River of Pain were adapted into audio dramas in 2016 and 2017 respectively released on the Alien Day of the respective year. Alan Dean Foster published Alien: Covenant – Origins, a novel set between the events of Prometheus and Alien: Covenant.

In addition to Alien: The Illustrated Story, a graphic novel adaptation of the original film, there have been numerous limited series set in the Alien universe, as well as non-canonical crossover appearances of the Alien. In addition to Alien vs. Predator comics featuring the Alien and Predator battling, Dark Horse Comics published Fire and Stone between 2014 and 2017, crossing over the continuities of the Alien prequel series with the Alien vs. Predator franchise.

Dark Horse Comics has also published a number of other miniseries crossovers, featuring the Alien species as an enemy pitted against prolific characters from other continuities. In 1995, the miniseries Superman/Aliens featured Aliens fighting against Superman, while his powers are diminished.[102] Between 1997 and 2002, a two-part miniseries called Batman/Aliens was published, depicting Batman fighting against a horde of Aliens in a jungle bordering Mexico and Guatemala.[103] In 1998, WildStorm, (now a part of Image Comics), and Dark Horse Comics published an intercompany crossover event called WildC.A.T.s/Aliens, featuring the Wildcats battling the Aliens.[104] Green Lantern Versus Aliens, an intercompany crossover event between Dark Horse and DC Comics, features a plot beyond either continuity, where the Aliens residing on the Green Lantern planet Mogo get out of control and must be exterminated.[105] In 2003, Dark Horse published Judge Dredd vs. Aliens, depicting an Alien invasion in Mega-City One, necessitating for Judge Dredd to intervene, to destroy the infestation.[106]

Promotion of Aliens: Colonial Marines at E3 2012

Since the launch of the Alien franchise, there have been numerous video games released over the years, spanning a variety of genres. In addition to appearances in crossover video games, including those from the Alien vs. Predator franchise and Mortal Kombat X, the four films from the original series were adapted into video games, typically multiple times.[107] The first release was Alien (1982) for the Atari 2600, inspired heavily by Pac-Man. A second adaptation of the first film was released in 1984. The sequel, Aliens was adapted into four different video games: two different 1986 games titled Aliens: The Computer Game, a collection of minigames by Activision and a first-person shooter by Software Studios; as well as two different games titled Aliens, a 1987 MSX platformer by Square and a 1990 arcade shoot 'em up by Konami. Acclaim Entertainment released three different games based on Alien 3; two different run and gun platformers - one for consoles in 1992, another for the SNES a year later - and a Game Boy adventure game in 1993. Sega also released a light gun arcade game Alien 3: The Gun in 1993. Acclaim's first-person shooter Alien Trilogy was released in 1996 and their adaptation of Alien Resurrection was released in 2000 as a PlayStation first-person shooter.

Other Alien games include Mindscape's adventure game Aliens: A Comic Book Adventure (1995), the first-person shooter Aliens Online (1998), the Game Boy Color action game Aliens: Thanatos Encounter (2001), the mobile phone game Aliens: Unleashed (2003), and the arcade game Aliens: Extermination (2006). In 2014, Play Mechanix and Raw Thrills released Aliens: Armageddon, a rail gun first person shooter that hit arcades soon after.[108] Between 2016 and 2017, Zen Studios released downloadable content packs in a product line called "Alien vs. Pinball", featuring three virtual pinball tables based around the Alien and Alien vs. Predator franchises for Zen Pinball 2, Pinball FX 2 and Pinball FX 3.[109]

In 2006, Sega made a deal with Fox Licensing to release two Alien video games for sixth generation consoles.[110] The first was Aliens: Colonial Marines, a first-person shooter by Gearbox Software that was released in 2013 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows.[111][112] The game is set between Aliens and Alien 3, following a group of marines sent to investigate the Sulaco who wound up crash-landing on LV-426.[113][114] The second was Alien: Isolation, a survival-horror game by Creative Assembly that follows Ripley's daughter, Amanda, who is stranded aboard an Alien-infested space station. The game experienced a long development cycle, with it finally being released in late 2014 for seventh generation consoles.[115] During the prolonged development of Alien: Isolation, Sega also released a Nintendo DS game Aliens Infestation in 2011.[116] Furthermore, a spin-off featuring Amanda Ripley called Alien: Blackout was released for mobile devices in 2019.[117]

Despite Alien being widely considered a mature and non child-appropriate series, merchandise - including action figures, board games and role-playing games - has been manufactured and marketed to a wide range of age groups. Prior to the release of the first film, 20th Century Fox executives signed a deal with Kenner Products, for the production of a board game called Alien Game, as well as action figures, marketed for being family-friendly. Following the release of the film and the outcry from parents about its nature of being a graphic and mature horror film, the product lines were abruptly cancelled.[118] The merchandising efforts for the franchise remained largely stagnant until the release of the more action-based sequel, Aliens, seven years later. From thereon out, merchandise has been produced on a rolling, ongoing basis.[119]

From the franchise's inception until Kenner's closure in 2000, the company was a major manufacturer of Alien action figures. From 1992 to 1995, Kenner produced a line of action figures dubbed Aliens, initially intended to promote a cancelled animated series called Operation: Aliens.[119] In 1996, Galoob released the Micro Machines Alien line of miniature toys, but ceased production the following year, due in large to the violent and graphic nature of its packaging art.[120] Following the founding of Hong Kong collectible toy company Hot Toys, one of the first lines the company began producing was Alien.[121] In 2014, Funko released a line of action figures heavily inspired by the original 1979 Kenner line called ReAction.[122] In the 2010s, the National Entertainment Collectibles Association (NECA) took a prominent role in the manufacturing of Alien action figures, with the majority being largely inspired by the Kenner line of action figures, as well as new additions depicting the prequel films and crossover continuities, such as Alien vs. Predator and Superman/Aliens.[123][124]

Following Kenner's ill-fated first foray into the board game market with Alien Game, merchandising efforts in the medium were stagnant, until Leading Edge Games released the cooperative game Aliens in 1989.[125] Leading Edge Games released Aliens Adventure Game in 1991, to mixed reviews and commentary that states it functions closer to a board game than a traditional tabletop RPG.[126][127] In 1993, British toy company Peter Pan Playthings Ltd released a board game called Operation: Aliens — Combat Game, in which up to four players play as Colonial Marines and compete to reach the center of the board and self-destruct the Alien-infested facility.[128] In December 2019, Swedish publisher Free League Publishing released a tabletop role-playing game called Alien: The Role-Playing Game, featuring two game modes.[129] An upcoming licensed board game titled Alien: USCSS Nostromo is set for release in 2020. However, in 2018, a French board game designer named François Bachelart accused the game's publisher, Wonder Dice, of theft of a game concept he pitched to them years prior. Wonder Dice published a press release, in which they threatened to sue anyone who would question their legal practices.[130]