The Weyland-Yutani Corporation’s History Explained

Introduced in Ridley Scott’s 1979 film, Alien, the Weyland-Yutani Corporation’s history explained it is just as destructive, terrifying, and unstoppable force of nature as the xenomorphs. Both entities are villains of the Alien world in their own right, but Weyland-Yutani Corporation is well-known for controlling much of the space-faring world, including technology, colonizing, exploration, and scientific research, all with less-than-noble intentions. Weyland-Yutani Corporation plays a significant part in the Alien franchise and the extended universe, often serving as a background player in the events occurring on the screen.

They are also primarily responsible for the deaths and danger the central characters are being put in. While introduced in the original Alien as Weyland-Yutani, the corporation is a merger between the British tech company Weyland Corporation and the Japanese cybernetics company Yutani Corporation. As the company plays a major role in the events of the Alien films, its history helps flesh out the world and the lives of its human characters.

Weyland Corporation

Founded By Peter Weyland

The better-known half of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, Weyland Corporation was founded by Peter Weyland on October 11, 2012. It was the first company in history to make $100 billion in its first five years. The company focused on technological advances, making huge strides in fields including holographics, off-world colonization, FTL travel, cybernetics, transportation, and healthcare. In 2015, Weyland Corp launched the first industrialized space mission to install Peter Weyland’s unique solar panel design, which aligns with Earth’s orbital plane but at an axial tilt, creating a perpetual summer solstice.

The renewable energy gathered from this expedition solidified Weyland Corp as a major player in the tech industry and made Peter Weyland his first billion dollars. In 2025, Weyland Corp introduced the first advanced Android prototype, David. In 2028, significant adjustments were made to the David prototype, facilitating his first interactions with humans, a meeting that proved promising for the future of android technology. In 2042, Weyland unveiled David 4 as the first commercially available model of the David series, introducing him as a helper designed to improve workflows and efficiency in offices and at home.

Project Prometheus began to take shape in 2073 and finally set off in 2091 when the USCSS Prometheus left Earth, heading for LV-223, following the star map discovered by Dr. Elizabeth Shaw and Charlie Holloway. Two years later, in 2093, the ship arrived at its destination, and the events of Prometheus unfolded.

Yutani Corporation

Japanese Cybernetics Company Founded In 2074

Weyland Corp and Weyland-Yutani play much more significant roles in the events of the Alien films and the extended universe in novels and comics than the Yutani Corporation, so there’s significantly less information available on Yutani than its counterparts. However, the information available states that Yutani Corporation was a Japanese cybernetics company founded in 2074. However, evidence suggests they may have been operating secretly for some time before the official founding date.

When the original CEO, Yutani, acquired the Yautja (Predator) Plasma Pistol through Colonel Stevens of the Gunnison Operation, she used the technology to propel her company’s success in advancing human technology. Yutani appears in the final scenes of Alien vs Predator: Requiem to retrieve the pistol from Colonel Stevens. The only other information presented about the Yutani Corporation is a patent dispute with Weyland Corporation over the David Android series filed in 2029, though Weyland won the lawsuit and the patent years later.

Weyland-Yutani Merger

Yutani Bought Out Weyland Corp

Finally, in 2099, Weyland Corp merged with the Yutani Corporation, forming the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. The narrative distributed by the Weyland half of the company is that Weyland absorbed Yutani in a hostile takeover, while in reality, the opposite is true. Yutani Corporation bought out Weyland, beating rival bids from many other potential buyers. After the Weyland and Yutani Corporations merged, they formed the British-Japanese multinational conglomerate, Weyland-Yutani Corporation, in 2099. Following the merger, Weyland-Yutani opened with the largest share value ever recorded on the Systems Exchange, buying out numerous other businesses and investing in almost every sector.

According to some, Weyland-Yutani had a stake in or owned almost everything by the 2150s, holding their main offices in Tokyo, London, San Francisco, Thedus, and the Sea of Tranquillity on Luna. The company deals primarily in technology, manufacturing synthetics, spaceships, and computers for industrial and commercial clients. In addition to its manufacturing division, Weyland-Yutani also controls a great deal of assets in interplanetary shipping and transport. It operates human colonies outside the solar system through the Extrasolar Colonization Administration and is one of the major companies funding exploration and colonization settlements.

Weyland-Yutani & Xenomorph Research

The Company Was Obsessed With The Aliens

Based on context clues from the Alien film series and extended media, nearly all of Weyland-Yutani’s employees know the company is highly corrupt, routinely bribing inspectors rather than adhering to safety protocols. As such, sometime prior to 2122, Weyland-Yutani detected a signal being broadcast from the derelict on LV-426, which they translated and discovered to be a warning about the deadly Xenomorph XX121. Weyland-Yutani would then dispatch the USCSS Nostromo to investigate the signal without informing the crew of the reason behind their mission.

This mission leads to the first human contact with the xenomorph in Alien and the death of the entire crew, with the exception of Ellen Ripley and Jones, the cat. The Weyland-Yutani Corporation covered up the incident, and the existence of the xenomorph, and the beacon was later deactivated by the crew of the USCSS Anesidora in Alien: Isolation.

By 2137, Weyland-Yutani became heavily involved in colonizing extrasolar planets, including terraforming suitable bodies with inhospitable atmospheres by constructing their revolutionary Atmosphere Processing Plant technology. The company built and oversaw numerous colonies across the galaxy, including Hadley’s Hope on LV-426, the settlement shown in Aliens, and Freya’s Prospect on BG-386, the setting for the video game Aliens vs Predator. Weyland-Yutani was also involved in non-civilian colonies, notably overseeing the Class C Work Correctional Unit and the associated industrial penal lead foundry on Fiorina “Fury” 161, explored in David Fincher’s Alien 3.

Notable major Weyland-Yutani laboratories were installed on LV-1201 (Aliens Versus Predator 2) and BG-386, as well as the Origin Facility on LV-426. These labs often operated under particularly amoral conditions, especially in xenomorph research, using humans as unwilling hosts and even deliberately sacrificing low-level employees as live prey. Despite tight security enforced by Weyland-Yutani combat androids, the company’s research facilities were notorious for containment failures and outbreaks, leading to a considerable loss of life among staff as well as civilians. These breaches often involved using the United States Colonial Marine Corps to restore containment.

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Weyland Yutani’s Collapse & Re-Emergence

The U.S. Shut Them Down, But They Rose Again

Finally, by the 2290s, Weyland-Yutani Corporation began to experience significant financial and political pressures. Their Nu Indi colony successfully sued for independence from the company, signaling the beginning of their loss of influence. Weyland-Yutani lost out on a United Systems Military (USM) contract for FTL drives, beaten out by rival conglomerate Ridton, and this severely affected the company’s financial performance. By 2349, megacorporations like Weyland-Yutani were outlawed. The company appealed the decision, but the ban was upheld, and Weyland-Yutani was formally dissolved, with the United States Military taking over many of their weapons research and development.

However, many agents of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation continued to operate covertly, utilizing contacts within the USM to gather research about ongoing projects. After the events of Alien: Resurrection, the USM Auriga crashed on Earth, and Weyland-Yutani agents seized much of the information they collected regarding the xenomorphs. The Weyland-Yutani Corporation formalized that data, compiling it with their research into the Alien: The Weyland-Yutani Report. The document is a technical guide to the Xenomorph XX121 as a species and outlines all of its interactions with humankind to date and the results of all of the known studies of its biology.

Eventually, the United States Military fell, and Weyland-Yutani re-emerged as a powerful multinational corporation. After cleaning up the heavily damaged and polluted Earth, the company was allowed to grow again due to the surge in public approval. Despite the role of the xenomorph as a villain in the Alien franchise, the true villain in the world of Alien is the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, fueling the research and the dangerous missions through the unseen machinations that bring them closer to the xenomorph.

How The Weyland-Yutani Corporation Plays Into Each Film Including Alien: Romulus

From Alien To Alien: Romulus

When it comes to the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, its first appearance came in Alien, but it was simply a background organization in that movie. The company sent the freighter USCSS Nostromo to investigate a distress signal. What no one knew at the time was the company (which remained unnamed until the next movie) knew there were xenomorphs onboard, but only the android Kane knew the real mission. No one lived but Ellen and her cat, although the Weyland-Yutani Corporation found her and kept investigating the xenomorphs she fought.

In Aliens, the Weyland-Yutani Corporation became a fully-fledged villain organization. The first corporate face was added to the story with Carter Burke (Paul Reiser), a real bureaucrat who took Ellen and a group of Colonial Marines with him to find the xenomorphs, once again not revealing the real mission was to capture one to use, and the lives of all those with him were irrelevant. Ellen survived once again, but Carter died, a fan-favorite moment, showing how hated the corporation ended up being.

In Alien 3, Ellen crash lands on a prison planet and learns that the Weyland-Yutani Corporation is coming to save her. However, when they arrive, they show their true evil intentions when they seek to once again get the xenomorph they always intended to find, and have no problem killing every human on the prison planet. When Ellen finally realizes that this company is eviler than even the xenomorphs, she dies by suicide to keep them from getting the xenomorph embryo growing inside her body.

Alien: Resurrection occurs 200 years after Alien 3 when the United States Military creates a clone of Ellen Ripley, hoping to surgically remove the xenomorph that was gestating inside her when she died. The alien escapes and the new Ripley clone sets out to stop the Queen again. The Weyland-Yutani Corporation is not in this movie.

The next movie in the franchise is Alien vs. Predator, and the company is back here. Charles Bishop Weyland sets a team off on an expedition where he finds a hunting ground where Predators hunt and kill xenomorphs for sport. This movie shows that the company modeled the Bishop android after Charles Bishop Weyland. While Weyland was not in AVP: Requiem, this film ended with Cullen Yutani receiving the Predator weapon following the escape, allowing both the spinoffs to reference the Weyland-Yutani Corporation.

Ridley Scott returned with Prometheus, bringing the Weyland-Yutani Corporation back in a big way. The prequel’s plot sees Peter Weyland send an expedition to follow the star maps to discover the origins of the universe and the Engineers. Weyland has an ulterior motive, though, as he hopes the Engineers can stop his death from old age, showing that the company has always been based on selfish reasons. He fails when David betrays and kills him, allowing the xenomorphs to burst out of the final Engineer’s chest.

Alien: Covenant was the sequel to Prometheus, which tied the new movies together with the original Alien quadrilogy. However, the corporation had almost nothing to do with this film besides funding the fateful Covenant colony mission to Origae-6.

Finally, in Alien: Romulus, the timeline moves back into the future, as the 2024 release takes place in between Alien and Aliens. This movie goes a long way to show how evil the Weyland-Yutani Corporation is, even more so than any movie since Aliens. They had oppressive living conditions on Jackson’s Star, where people die in the mines of exhaustion, so the company doubles the workload of survivors. They then want the pathogen so they can inject it into their workers. In Alien, the Weyland-Yutani Corporation is the ultimate evil, and even the deadly xenomorphs pale in comparison.

Alien: Romulus

Alien: Romulus is the seventh film in the Alien franchise. The movie is directed by Fede Álvarez and will focus on a new young group of characters who come face to face with the terrifying Xenomorphs. Alien: Romulus is a stand-alone film and takes place in a time not yet explored in the Alien franchise.

Director

Fede Alvarez

Release Date

August 16, 2024

Distributor(s)

20th Century

Runtime

119 Minutes