Alien: Covenant is not the last Alien movie we will ever see. Almost 40 years after Ridley Scott's original Alien came out in theaters, and the franchise is stronger than ever. And, with more Alien movies on the horizon, it's curious to see that the Alien franchise is avoiding one specific franchise trope: the post-credits scene. The Alien: Covenant post-credits scene doesn't exist, but it does have a cliffhanger ending to keep fans occupied.
Alien: Covenant follows in the footsteps of Prometheus and the original Alien series before it by forgoing the now traditional post-credits scene. Released in 1979, Alien pre-dated the sequence's craze in Hollywood, and even the series' most recent film, Prometheus, decided against adding anything to the film after the credits rolled. Prometheus did, however, feature a website address at the end of the credits that led fans to a hub of Alien mythology. This time, Scott decided to give fans nothing — not even a website. And that's OK. Covenant doesn't have a post-credits scene because it doesn't need one. Spoiler alert, the movie has a cliffhanger ending so intense, it doesn't need to tease viewers with a new storyline to make sure audiences come back for more. Nor does the film need a post-credits scene to introduce a new, confusing piece of mythology.
Covenant has enough Alien mythology to keep your mind busy for years. On top of that, Scott specifically wanted to keep the movie's ending open-ended because he wanted the audience to remain engaged. "That's why I'm doing it, so you're asking these questions," he said in an interview with IGN. And before you start to think that Alien: Covenant doesn't have a post-credits scene doesn't mean filmmakers don't know where the story is going, rest assured that Scott knows exactly what's going to happen next.
According to Scott, writers have been working on a script for a follow up to Covenant for a while, though it's not finished yet. "We're writing [a sequel] now, as we speak," Scott told IGN. "I'll be filming that within 14 months," he promised. As for how many Alien movies are in our future, Scott isn't so sure. "I don't know. [I'll make] maybe two more [films], or maybe one more, I don't know," he said in an interview with Yahoo. Then again, Ridley has told other media outlets that he'd be willing to make six more Alien movies, as reported by The Telegraph.
One thing's for sure: with the possibility of one to six more Alien movies in the years ahead comes the possibility of post-credits scenes.
