Brian Duffield Says He Spent Two Weeks Rewriting a New ‘Alien' Movie, Was Never Offered to Direct

A few months ago it was reported that Brian Duffield had been hired to write a mysterious ‘Alien’ movie for 20th Century.

The "Whalefall" filmmaker has now confirmed to THR that he did some rewriting on an "Alien" project, but his involvement lasted roughly two weeks, and nobody ever offered him the director's chair.

"I'm not doing an Alien movie. I know how the rumor started, but no one's ever asked me to direct an Alien movie," Duffield said. "20th needed some [writing] help for a couple of weeks, and I helped while I was doing 'Whalefall' because it's the same people and studio. So that's not what's next for me, but hopefully they get it up and running soon. Those actors are so awesome."

Duffield won't say which "Alien" film he touched, but "those actors" means actors have already been set up, which means it’s either Ridley Scott’s “Alien: Covenant” sequel, which would bring back Michael Fassbender, or "Alien: Romulus 2" with Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson. He's not offering any more than that, but I keep hearing that one is on the backburner.

‘Romulus’ made around $350M worldwide on an $80M budget. "Covenant" grossed $241M worldwide and cost $100M.

Fede Álvarez recently stepped away from directing the ‘Romulu’ follow-up, even though he'd already finished a script. He's staying on as a producer, but the studio needs a new director. Whereas Scott recently confirmed he was working on a “Prometheus” sequel with a rewrite having recently happened.

As for Duffield, the filmmaker behind “No One Will Save You,”his next film is "Whalefall," a survival thriller starring Austin Abrams and Josh Brolin, which sits at 74% on Rotten Tomatoes, and hits theaters tomorrow, October 16.