Neill Blomkamp is continuing his successful campaign of hype via instagram with some new Alien concept art. Blomkamp essentially willed the film into existence earlier this year when he posted some compelling concept art to social media - not because he was officially working on the film, but because he was passionate about his idea for a sequel. Perhaps it was his way of pitching via internet, because one clamorous fan response and a big press tour later, things got very legit and Blomkamp ended up at the helm of the Alien resurrection (sorry) as director of the first Alien film in nearly 20 years.

And while there's still very little known about the direction Blomkamp is heading with his Alien movie, this new piece of concept art continues the exciting trend of featuring iconic Alien franchise characters Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and Corporal Hicks (Michael Biehn), who seemingly perished in Alien 3.

Sigourney Weaver in Aliens
Image via 20th Century Studios

Blomkamp hasn't directly said he's ret-conning the events of that film. In fact, he's been rather wish-washy about the matter, saying his film is a "genetic sibling" to Aliens and making it clear that he's not a fan of where the franchise headed after the second entry, while also maintining that he's not trying to undo what was done in Aliens 3 or Alien: Resurrection.

Whatever the case, the prospect of another Alien film with Ripley and Hicks at the top of the call sheet is incredibly exciting - he's spoken before about wanting to give Ripley's story proper closure, and if he's still putting their likeness on his concept art after officially attaching himself to the film, things are looking good. Whether or not Blomkamp can pull off the goliath task of living up to some of the most beloved sci-fi films of all time is less certain. District 9 was brilliant, but his subsequent films Elysium and Chappie fell flat. Hopefully Blomkamp has some more of that D9 magic left in him, because if he can bring that ingenuity to Alien, this is a film well worth getting excited about. Check out the latest concept art below.

#alien going very well. Love this project A photo posted by Brownsnout (@neillblomkamp) on