While the Alien franchise has plenty of memorable legacy characters, Alien: Romulus ensured that only one of them needs to return for the next outing. The Alien movies have a messy timeline that can be tricky for franchise newcomers to navigate. The first four movies in the series take place in chronological order, but 2004’s Alien Vs Predator and its 2007 sequel Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem are both prequels set over a hundred years before Alien. As if the Alien Vs Predator movies didn’t complicate things enough, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant made them worse.

Alien director Ridley Scott returned to the series in 2012 and proceeded to completely ignore the existence of the Alien Vs Predator movies, meaning his prequel Prometheus created a new timeline for the series. Prometheus takes place before Alien but contradicts the events of the franchise numerous times, as does its 2017 sequel Alien: Covenant. In 2024, Don’t Breathe director Fede Alvarez made an admirable stab at clarifying the franchise’s timeline when he directed Alien: Romulus. By bringing in a new version of Alien’s android Ash, Alien: Romulus offered viewers a link between Prometheus and Alien.

Michael Fᴀssbender’s David Is The Only Legacy Alien Character Who Should Return

The Alien Franchise Doesn’t Need Comebacks Outside of Prometheus’s Breakout Star

In Alien: Romulus, the late Alien star Ian Holm returns to the franchise not as Ash, but as the android Rook. This villainous character explains to the heroes that the lab they have stumbled upon is a Weyland-Yutani facility dedicated to designing the perfect space-resilient worker. Alien: Romulus’ protagonists soon discover the substance the Weyland-Yutani Corporation used to create these superhuman hybrids is Prometheus’s infamous Black Goo. This explains why the тιтular space station is crawling with Xenomorphs, which messily dispatch most of the movie’s characters.

Thanks to this explanation from Rook, Michael Fᴀssbender’s Prometheus and Alien: Covenant star David is the only Alien franchise character who should logically appear in the next sequel. Cailee Spaeny’s Rain and her android brother Andy could justifiably show up, but it is important to remember they spent Alien: Romulus actively trying to escape the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. They more than earned their escape, so as Alien: Earth makes Prometheus’ lore even more central to the series, it is clear that Fᴀssbender’s amoral android is the only returning character who matters now.

Even after Alien: Romulus, David’s role in the series as a whole remains somewhat unclear. In Alien: Covenant, he seemed determined to use the mysterious Black Goo to create a lethal bioweapon. This resulted in David developing various Neomorphs, murderous monsters that resembled the franchise’s iconic monster but did not quite share its exact iconic creature design. Strangely, Alien: Covenant never explicitly explained whether David invented the Xenomorph, or if the franchise’s тιтular alien already existed and was originally created by the Engineers whose ancient experiments inspired David.

Any Other Legacy Alien Character Returning In Romulus’ Sequel Could Be Disastrous

Ripley’s Return Could Complicate The Franchise Unnecessarily

Since David’s role in the development of the first Xenomorph remains unclear, there is an obvious role for him in an upcoming Alien movie. Any follow-up to Alien: Romulus could give Fᴀssbender’s android a role akin to that of Rook in Alien: Romulus, where he acts as a villainous representative of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, and a more articulate threat than the Xenomorphs themselves. However, Alien: Romulus’s follow-up shouldn’t feature Alien franchise characters other than David, since Scott’s Prometheus changes to the Alien series lore are the only element the series should explain further.

Since Alien: Romulus takes place between Alien and Aliens, the movie’s sequel could reasonably feature characters from Aliens or Alien 3 in terms of its timeline. To make matters worse, Sigourney Weaver’s Ripely is in cryosleep during the events of Alien: Romulus, meaning the franchise could reasonably justify a comeback from her digitally deaged self. This would be a hokey, unnecessary twist, as would the return of supporting characters from Aliens or Alien 3. The self-contained story of Aliens doesn’t require expansion, while Alien 3 was unpopular enough to make any character comebacks a bad idea.

How Alien: Romulus Sets Up David’s Return After The Events Of Prometheus And Covenant

David’s Comeback Makes More Sense After Rook’s Alien: Romulus Role

For over a decade, Scott’s divisive Prometheus has left the question of David’s involvement in the Xenomorph’s evolution a mystery. Alien: Covenant arguably only made this more confusing, proving that David did use the Xenomorph as a weapon but never clarifying if their existence predated this use. The fact that Fargo showrunner Noah Hawley told KCRW’s The Business podcast that he wasn’t interested in the prequel’s depiction of David as the Xenomorph’s creator reaffirms the reality that only the Alien movie timeline can explain David’s role in the series.

An Alien: Romulus follow-up could explain why Fᴀssbender’s android was experimenting on humans and developing Xenomorph hybrids, and whether his work was sanctioned by Weyland-Yutani. The presence of Prometheus’ Black Goo in Alien: Romulus’s lab seems to imply that David was working for the Corporation, but his remote existence on a faraway planet in Alien: Covenant seemingly proved he had gone mad with power and abandoned humanity altogether.

David May Be Too Big Of A Character To Return In The Alien: Romulus Sequel

Fᴀssbender’s High Profile Makes A Minor Cameo Tricky

Unfortunately, it could be hard to get Fᴀssbender’s David back for an Alien: Romulus sequel as he is apt to overshadow the rest of the sequel’s story. Much of what made Alien: Romulus so critically successful was the fact that, although Alvarez’s movie did graft the mythology of Prometheus and Alien: Covenant onto the original movie series, Alien: Romulus still functioned as a scary, intense, self-contained sci-fi horror. The blockbuster was a thrill ride first and an exposition/lore delivery system second.

In contrast, any Alien: Romulus sequel that brings back a star as high profile as Fᴀssbender would need to give him top billing. He would have to be the sequel’s main villain or a co-protagonist, which isn’t necessarily something the creators would want while developing a new story. This approach could work, but it would likely require the sequel to focus primarily on Fᴀssbender’s character. For the Alien franchise to wrap up its story successfully after Alien: Romulus clarified its lore, the next sequel would need to finally center Fᴀssbender’s character instead of relegating him to another scene-stealing supporting role.

Source: The Business (via KCRW)