Alien: Antar bringing James Cameron back.

Rock on MonsterZero. Great concept, I'd love to see that.

Cameron proved he can provide an amazing underwater adventure with The Abyss just after Aliens. I have gone back and watched Aliens lately and I'm starting to warm up to it again.

MonsterZero - Interesting idea! I love underwater movies. Ingeniero mentioned The Abyss - that's a great movie. Hicks is one of the characters of the film. :)

Cameron is planning 4 Avatar sequels - if I'm not mistaken. So I think he won't direct an Alien movie before 2028. 

MonsterZero - Your idea is similar to the story of the sci-fi horror The Rift (1990). It's time to make a remake. :)

Some stills from The Rift:

Thanks for the up votes!

Even if JC produced it..or got the ball rolling on production? It'd be worth the buzz...I'd think he'd have a tough time passing up an underwater Alien adventure though.

We do need a czar for the Alien series!

kevin feige - Marvel universe.

Kathleen Kennedy - Star Wars.

Alien - ??

Cool Ati! Have to watch the Rift!

Just noticed tons of underwater sci-fi in 1989: Leviathan , The Abyss, Deep Star Six, Lords of the Deep, The Rift....

...or Evil Below (1989) :)

The Rift is similar to Leviathan.

I think its a interesting idea...

Certainly would bring a good Tense Thriller Aspect to the Franchise, i like Tense Thriller type Plots, so it could come across with very tense situations of Trust like in the movie THE THING and like a movie i saw last night  De-Tox (Sylvester Stallone)

Have to check that Movie out (The Rift) never heard of it before, just seen the Plot and some parts is similar to my ideas for a Alien Covenant Sequel lol (pitched the idea to a few on here) will make a Topic hopefully this week about it.

We could also see in part The Rift is kind of like a Prometheus inspired flick... well Vice Versa, from the Plot i have just read you can see The Rift, shares some things with Prometheus/Alien Covenant with the Black Goo and other Organic Experiments.

The Rift seems a movie thats right up my Street ;) (my cup of tea)

Oh and there is no land on LV878, it's covered completely by water(stormy weather and a dim sun...large waves...Interstellar like)

And the planets atmosphere is toxic.... so IF the crew makes the surface(with oxygen scrubbers failing!! times running out!) they won't be able to remove their helmets and take a breath of fresh air. Hope they can swim(no need to swim...can't breath the air).

Captain is crazy because the wireless implant is putting pressure on his brain.

BigDave - I'm happy. 8) But you should take into consideration that it was made in 1990. :)

You are right about the similarities but let's admit that nearly every sci-fi horror movie tried to copy Alien and The Thing in the eighties. (Galaxy of Terror, Forbidden World, The Titan Find, etc.)

Indeed and even those movies ( Alien and The Thing) had copied from movies prior to them, just such a unique way Visually they did so.

Certainly interesting MonsterZero you should make a broad Synopsis, that would be interesting and maybe some day you could get it to some kind of a Draft ;)

@ MonsterZero,

Much like BigDave I too have pondered a similar idea, but with mine, I set it on Earth...

A young Weyland funds an expedition to the bottom of our oceans where a sunken Juggernaut is discovered, partially corroded and covered in coral and barnacles. I never went too far into the concept but did imagine the crew entering the vessel through the vaginally reminiscent openings, which in this case would have been closed and sucked the crew inside. Unlike Prometheus, though I would have had the Engineer pilot onboard sacrifice himself to destroy the vessel and the Aliens onboard saving the remaining human characters and the human race at large. With Weyland knowing the Engineers exist and having only salvaged fragments of their technology he searches for historical similarities, leading him to Dr. Elizabeth Shaw.

Considering James Cameron's love for everything subnautical, and his love for science fiction it is very viable possibility he could return in time, as I doubt the Avatar franchise has the legs to last through another four sequels.

I think both ideas are interesting...  Certainly a Underwater Juggernaught is interesting.

I would be tempted to go further....  what if Earth had a Ancient Engineer Outpost, at the Dawn of the Creation of Mankind, when we had been evolved into Early Man...  what if this Ancient City was revealed to be very like the Engineers City on Planet 4?

But then reveal this City on Earth is discovered in the future, and so Mankind Finally find ATLANTIS what they discover is a Ancient Underwater City in ruins, covered in time by coral and other sediment and oceanic life.  Much like some of the lost underwater towns/cities in Italy

Imagine more derelict than this though and the Statues of Engineers, and this place has a Hanger, like in Alien Covenant.  Where the Explorers then uncover a Juggernaught.

This is one idea i had pondered with a while back too...

But this could work with Monster Zeroes idea, where instead we come to some Planet that once had a Engineer Civilization, so like Planet 4 but has been underwater for many thousands of years, i think such a Plot could work.

I think a Alien: Atlantis Title would be a little to on the nose though lol but revealing a the Plot as Project Atlantis would work or in Monster Zero's case, the First Mission was Project Atlantis and his Plot is set on another Mission to discover the disappearance of Project Atlantis maybe?

I think the potential for a Black Goo Discovery rather than Eggs would be interesting though, as you can imagine the impact and monstrosity of a finding of a Juggernaught and its Cargo Infecting the Ocean.

Xeno-Sharks Hybrids,  Trilobite/Octopus etc.

BigDave, Gavin Great minds think alike! :-)

BigDave great idea about the infected ocean! I think JC would really go for this....maybe with an environmental angle..."See! This is what will happen to Earths oceans if we don't protect them!!" - James Cameron Alien 5/Antar 2020

You are most welcome MonsterZero. This topic certainly deserved an upvote.

First stay in space, please!

Things like 'scenes on Earth' or 'settings of Earth-like environment' do not work well in an Alien movie.

The reason why the movies Alien and Aliens are so popular is the fact that the scenes in them do not resemble Earth.

I hope the direct Alien prequel won't take place on planets similar to Earth.

Ati, Oh it would start in space and end in space.

Weyland Yutani would deliver the submarine from space and retrieve the sub with all the goodies on board. It's an autonomous rescue. The Antar will be sent to it's next planetary assignment.

MonsterZero - Ok. :)

MonsterZero nice concept! Love the twist with the crew, brilliant. Its so.....Alien.

Perhaps another twist for your story. The Synthetic in this actually is actually noble and genuine in trying to save the crew and thwart W-Y and the Captain.

But the crew mistrust it sensing a trap and eventually mutiny and go against what the Synth recommends them to do. Ultimately they end up destroying what would have been a genuine escape option and doom themselves.

IRaptus, Synth trying to help and the crew doesn't know who/what to trust...would work!

I'd have a scene where the captain(speaking in Russian)tells the crew how he will flay them and remove their hands, eyes and he use them to set a platter...a feast for the gods. (....He's eating grapes and cutting his steak while he tells them this....)

The crew will be puzzled(unable to understand Russian)...the audience will read the subtitles. they will ask the synth for translation and he/she/it will tell them: the captain is just 'wishing them well and advising them to work as a team'.  Is the synth protecting the crew or complicit?   ?

I have to say while a Alien movie is more better to stay in Space....  i think this applies to the Franchise of past, i feel with the Prequels and the very back ground to the Engineers i think the Expanded Alien Franchise could well take part on Planets rather than Baron Moons etc.

The Engineers back ground appears to suggest they have visited much more than Earth, LV-223 and Planet 4, i think a Underwater Based Movie would be interesting, and could be explored in context of either this was ONE a World that had land and had interaction with Engineers, or it was always a Water World where the Engineers ship crashed at some point. 

We really need to Understand and Discover and ask WHY do the Engineers Create/Seed Worlds, Ridley Scott calls them Genetic Space Gardeners and so we have to ask is their ONLY purpose to Create Humanoids? Are other Creatures just a Side Effect/Creation from the Sacrificial Seeding and only selected Organism are chosen to be Evolved, or are they also Engineered or needed for Food Sources for the kinds of Organism their Agenda of Creation is involved with.

If the Engineers go around Creating Life in General and so not to create Intelligent Species, then for them discovering or manipulating a Ocean World could be something they would be looking to do, so they could come across a Water World  and maybe want to Seed/Evolve Aquatic Life?  Maybe they would see this World as Potential and look to Manipulate it to Reduce the Water and Allow for Land Masses to Form so it would then become a Viable World to Seed Life on.   Either way would be a good enough reasons to find our Engineers visiting this World.

Another option is a OUTPOST If the Engineers Ships can be made to go underwater, then setting up a Underwater Outpost like LV-223 certainly would be a very good route to take as far as Safety Precautions and to keep this place hidden and less accessible than building a Outpost on open Land.

So again either of these, or a Ancient Calamity/War or Punishment could also put any Ancient Engineer Settlement/Outpost under water too.

I agree BigDave, Space and dead planets/moons are much better for the Alien series....But I'm not sure Cameron would settle for space...

I'd start the movie aboard a Russian starship called 'Pushkin':

The vessel is orbiting a giant water world. The world has 3 moons that tug and create giant waves/tides. Hostile environment to say the least. The Pushkin has been supporting the Antar.

The captain and crew of scientists have been to the derelict and have returned with canisters and large green crystals. They have strict orders to return the artifacts to Earth, for study.

Aboard the ship, the captain is saying farewell to his sister, she is in an airlock with her new husband, they are going on their honeymoon. The captain promises the newlyweds the artifacts will not be studied until they return.

The captain watches them leave....Then grabs a ax and heads toward the crew quarters.....

Why not? The chances that it would be worse than Prometheus and Alien Covenant is small. Aliens had good characters in it.

I like the idea that it would be a movie that us under water, they had a scene like that in AR which is my favorite scene in it.

By now I would rather have Cameron direct an alien movie than Scott for kind of obvious reasons.