In case you haven’t heard, a new Alien movie is on the way thanks to persistence and Instagram. District 9 and Eylsium director Neill Blokmamp got the idea for a new Alien film and, instead of going to 20th Century Fox or reaching out to see if there was interest, he went ahead and started putting the movie together himself. After posting some of the concept art online, Fox apparently came calling, resulting in the announcement that the studio had officially set Blomkamp to direct a film set within the Alien universe as his next movie, with Ridley Scott producing.
Not much is known about the film other than what we saw in concept art, which showed the return of Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley as well as Michael Biehn’s Hicks. The press tour for Blomkamp’s most immediate next feature, Chappie, is ongoing, and folks are trying pretty hard to get details out of the filmmaker. Sky Movies succeeded, with Blomkamp revealing how his new Alien movie fits into the franchise as a whole:
“I want this film to feel like it is literally the genetic sibling of Aliens, so it’s Alien, Aliens and then this film.”
It’s early days yet, but it certainly sounds like Blomkamp plans on at least partially disregarding Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection. Sure they’re not great films, but it’d be weird to just pretend like that part of Ripley’s story never happened. But again, it’s early days, so I’ll be interested to see how Blomkamp addresses (or doesn’t address) the events of those films in his movie.
The filmmaker also discussed his desire to maintain the “nightmare” element of the series:
“It’s a Freudian nightmare. That element to me is what is so appealing; to put the audience on the edge of their seat the whole time in a traditional, monster-stalking-you, dark-corridor-way. I love that. And then when you mix in all of the deign elements and the life cycle of the alien, it’s a powder keg of creativity for me.”
But possibly even more curiously, both Blomkamp and Weaver spoke with a sense of finality with regards to this new movie, with Weaver saying the following:
“I would love to take Ripley out of sort of orbiting around in space and give a proper finish to what was such an excellent story. So when someone like Neill Blomkamp said, ‘Well, I’m interested in finishing the story,’ my little ears perked up… I think it’s a great series. It deserves a proper ending—I know the fans would love that."
I’m sure Fox feels differently about “ending” what’s been such a successful franchise for the studio, but if Blomkamp and Weaver could come up with a fitting conclusion to Ripley’s story, that would certainly be more satisfying than where we left off with Resurrection.
This is Blomkamp’s next movie, so I imagine he’ll spend the rest of the year writing the script and beginning prep work, with production likely getting underway in the first half of 2016 if it all comes together. I imagine everyone will have already forgotten that Chappie exists well before that.
