Yahoo Movies continues to peel back the layers on Alien: Covenant in anticipation of the film’s U.S. release this Friday, May 19th.

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Just last week, for instance, the outlet posted new details regarding Ridley Scott’s plans for the future of the series, which may now stop at one Covenant sequel as opposed to those original reports pointing to a whole new trilogy of Alien films – be it one, two, or three sequels, the director’s world-building process has all but relegated Neill Blomkamp’s nascent Alien 5 from the back-burner into development limbo. It seems the great Ellen Ripley will never receive the proper send-off that Blomkamp had proposed after all, though it’s fair to say that splitting Fox’s Alien franchise onto two separate tracks would’ve run the risk of oversaturation.

Besides, Alien: Covenant hasn’t exactly wowed critics since its international debut last week. Scott’s prequel-sequel is by no means a disaster; rather, it skates dangerously close to the ‘all beauty, no brains’ combination that crippled Prometheus five years ago.

Alas, it’s too soon to gauge how Ridley Scott’s sequel plans will be affected by this lukewarm reception – if at all – but upon reflecting on the creation of Covenant, the filmmaker revealed to Yahoo Movies that he originally filmed an Earth-set prologue scene in which Katherine Waterson and James Franco planned their future.

I did one more scene which was [James Franco’s Branson] in an apartment, a futuristic apartment in New York with Daniels, who is his wife, played by Katherine [Waterston],” Scott told the site. “And we see this couple discussing a future. He says ‘we’ll build this cabin on the lake in this particular place’, and they’ve identified where they’re going to go. But the journey will be long and dangerous. Dangerous because you’re asleep and who knows what happens? That was in there but I discovered we don’t need it.

Alien: Covenant is expected to open Stateside on Friday, May 19th. It’s currently simmering north of $42 million in the aftermath of its international bow, and considering that King Arthur: Legend of the Sword isn’t presenting much in the way of competition, it’s small wonder why analysts predict a healthy $65 million debut at the domestic box office for Covenant.