10 Movie Endings That Basically Doomed Their Franchise

4. Shaw Is Dead, David Created The Xenomorphs - Alien: Covenant

The Ending

Alien: Covenant's third act reveals that malevolent android David (Michael Fassbender) was the creator of the xenomorphs, and that Prometheus' protagonist Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) was killed during one of his nefarious experiments.

Covenant's final scene then goes full mustache-twirler on fans by having David reveal that he's taken the place of his good counterpart, Walter, and effectively condemned survivors Daniels (Katherine Waterston) and Tallahassee (Danny McBride) to a likely grim fate.

Why It Doomed The Franchise

First and foremost, Covenant took too many steps towards completely demystifying the xenomorphs, for while it's theoretically possible that David isn't the only person to create a race of xenomorph-like creatures, the reveal nevertheless completely stripped away the haunting, cosmic horror of their initially unknown origins.

That's to say nothing of Prometheus building up Shaw as a likeable protagonist only for Covenant to completely betray this for reasons unknown, before David, with all of his God-like pretensions, is finally confirmed to be the series' ultimate antagonist.

Now, we currently have little idea of how the recently announced follow-up will turn out, but it's safe to say that Ridley Scott has contorted the property in so many awkward directions that it's impossible to imagine any of this being resolved or expanded upon in a satisfying fashion.

At least we might get another banger of a Michael Fassbender performance out of it, right?