Ridley Scott Cut 20 Minutes Out Of Alien: Covenant

Though Ridley Scott’s Alien was, and still is, one of the greatest horror/sci-fi films of all-time, when the director returned to the franchise with Prometheus, he was met with some pretty harsh criticisms. It was a divisive movie, to be sure, and one that had many, many issues. That’s why there was so much excitement surrounding Alien: Covenant, as it was said to be a return to form for Scott and for the series as a whole.

The key word there is “was,” as the flick is now in theatres and unfortunately, it’s not a terribly huge success. Reviews have been lukewarm and the box office business it’s doing is underwhelming, too. On the whole, it is still a step up from Prometheus, but like that film, it’s also got its fair share of problems. One thing many are calling it out for is the fact that the trailers showed us a whole lot that didn’t end up making it into the finished product, and there’s a pretty good reason for that.

Chatting to Collider, Scott revealed that he cut roughly 20 minutes of footage, though noted that it wasn’t full scenes we lost, more just trimming down of existing ones.

Ridley Scott: The only reason I occasionally take my hat off to screenings is you think you know everything, but you know you don’t. Something inordinately simple you’ve assumed everyone understands and they don’t. That’s the key thing, isn’t it? You know when it’s a bit too long. And also, if you’re a bit too long you then ask “Right speed? Too slow? Too fast?” If they go, “no, too fast” you go “sh*t, I’ve got to slow down” – because as you edit, you can get weary and want to cut, cut, cut.

Collider: Oh, so were there a lot of deleted scenes?

Scott: No.

Michael Fassbender: I don’t think so.

Scott: I always come out at almost 2:23 first cut, look at it, and go “I’ve got to get to two hours.”

The director didn’t comment on which specific parts were sliced, but we imagine that we’ll get to see some of what was lost on the eventual Blu-ray release, which would definitely be nice. After all, Prometheus had some interesting deleted/alternate scenes that did end up adding a bit more context to everything, thus improving it. Whether the stuff that Covenant cut was anything worth watching is unknown, but we’re certainly intrigued to find out what didn’t make it into the final version.

Tell us, have you seen Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant yet? If so, what did you think of it? Let us know in the usual place.