While the state of Neill Blomkamp's planned Aliens sequel is a bit muddled at the moment, one thing is becoming more and more clear as the months march by: it will not be beholden to either David Fincher’s Alien 3 (1992) or Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Alien: Resurrection (1997). Unfortunately, that's about all we can presume at this point as even a title hasn't been settled on. We do know, however, that franchise star Sigourney Weaver is expected to be appearing in "Alien 5" as Ellen Ripley, and it's from Weaver that more news has arrived today.

In speaking with EW about the 30th anniversary of the James Cameron-written/directed film, Aliens, Weaver pretty much confirmed that her upcoming sequel with Blomkamp at the helm will diverge from the pre-existing movies. The chat came on the heels of news that an Aliens reunion will be coming to Comic-Con in celebration of that film's debut 30 years ago; a quick quote from Ripley about the state of the untitled Aliens film nearly got lost in all that excitement.

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Image via 20th Century Fox

Here's what Weaver had to say about the new movie:

“It’s just as if, you know, the path forks and one direction goes off to three and four and another direction goes off to Neill’s movie.”

It was a little over a year ago that Blomkamp himself said as much, making his intentions clear:

“My favorites are the first two movies. So I want to make a film that’s connected to Alien and Aliens. That’s my goal. I’m not trying to undo Alien 3 or Alien: Resurrection, I just want it to be connected to Alien and Aliens.”

At the time, Weaver also added:

“I always wanted to complete this story and it wasn’t really until Neill and I started talking that I said, ‘This is why we waited however many years its been.'”

Weaver will also be collaborating with Aliens director Cameron on a number of sequels to Avatar. While the director is clearly busy with the three planned features that will take the production team through 2022 at the very least, he still occasionally has Aliens on the mind:

“You know, it’s interesting. I don’t normally pursue these kind of nostalgia moments like we’re going to do down at Comic-Con, and I didn’t do it much at all for Terminator on its 30th, but there’s something about Aliens. It was a milestone for myself and Gale because the film got seven Academy Award nominations.”

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Image via 20th Century Fox

After winning two for best sound effects editing and visual effects, Cameron noticed the change in the game:

“All of a sudden, we were playing in the big league. So looking at it retrospectively, you know, [Gale] and I both feel that was more of our graduation, or breakthrough, than Terminator — even though Terminator’s the film that put us on the map.”

Do you think there are hopes for more awards in the future of the Aliens franchise? Are you excited to see Blomkamp's take and how it diverges from the existing films? Let us know in the comments!

For more on Blomkamp's Aliens sequel, check out some of our recent write-ups:

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Image via 20th Century Fox