20th Century Fox has released details about the special features that will be included on the Blu-ray release of this summer’s Alien: Covenant.

Director Ridley Scott’s sci-fi prequel/sequel was released in May to a mostly positive critical reception and a somewhat underwhelming global box office gross. The mild backlash to Prometheus may have played a role in the film’s moneymaking problems, as it opened respectably but suffered an 80 percent box office drop from Friday to Friday that destroyed its long-term prospects. The continuation of the Alien franchise may depend on the success of this home release, especially now that District 9 director Neill Blomkamp’s Alien 5 has been scrapped (according to the filmmaker himself). With the future of the Alien series in question, we at least now know when fans will be able to purchase and watch Covenant at home.

20th Century Fox will make Alien: Covenant available on high definition Blu-ray starting August 15. Among the special features on the disc, the big selling point should be the twelve deleted and extended scenes that Scott has made available from his film. The scenes total up to almost eighteen minutes of additional footage that didn’t make the final cut of Covenant, which already runs 122 minutes without them.

The full list of Alien: Covenant special features are listed below, including what is sure to be another one of Scott’s famously entertaining audio commentaries and a handful of other featurettes:

Audio Commentary by Ridley Scott
12 Deleted and Extended Scenes (17m 58s)
5 Featurettes: Meet Walter (2m 19s), Phobos (9m 8s), The Last Supper (4m 36s), The Crossing (2m 32s), Advent (6m 40s)
Master Class: Ridley Scott (55m 25s)
Theatrical Trailers
David’s Illustrations
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1
4K Blu-ray: Dolby Atmos

There is little insight at the moment to offer regarding what is contained in the deleted scenes for Covenant and whether or not the clips would have had a significant bearing on the plot of the film’s theatrical cut (though Scott has indicated that Covenant‘s deleted scenes are not all that vital, in the past). A lot of the time, the deleted scenes for a movie were cut for a good reason, amounting to filler that would have thrown off the pacing and bloated the runtime. With a film with as many ideas and concepts as Covenant, however, these scenes could be valuable in showing how the film progressed through production, balancing the hybrid of story elements from Alien and Prometheus that Scott had in the final film result.

http://screenrant.com/alien-covenant...-release-date/