You may remember director Neill Blomkamp dropped a bombshell at the start of the year by posting various Alien 5 concept art pieces he had done on Instagram. Today, Collider, finally caught up with him while promoting his latest movie Chappie and asked him about the concept art. Blomkamp basically says the movie may still happen but reiterates that he hadn’t officially spoken to 20th Century Fox about the project but they wanted to make it. He indicated that he has spoken to Sigourney Weaver and has done much more artwork than he has released.
“There was a reason. I wanted to make that film. I still may make that film. [Laughs] It may happen. But I did it on my own time. Like when Chappie was winding down in post and I had available time, I started to work on it. It was also from talking to Sigourney [Weaver] during the making of this. I mean, I asked her about Alien all the time. Alien and Aliens are my favorite films. So I genuinely wanted to make that film, I came up with the story, I came up with way more art than I put out and I never officially spoke to Fox about it, but Fox wanted to make it. So, I kind of touched on it and I didn’t know what to do, and I didn’t know if I was just gonna go leave directing for a whole bunch of time and then I was like, ‘I might as well put some art out.’ But I may make it. I don’t know. That’s where it stands.”
Derelict
So, there you go. There still may be some hope left for a potential Alien 5 movie.
Update: There’s a new interview with Sigourney Weaver about it on ComingSoon.net:
That brings us to Weaver, who we spoke shortly afterwards, and we asked if she knew about how she inspired Blomkamp to start developing an Aliens project on his own. “He kept sending me these brilliant designs and ideas and everything. We’ll see what happens,” she told us.
We asked if there was more to Ripley she was interested in exploring. “It’s not that so much is that we just left it at such a creepy place, sort of stranded above Earth. I was quite happy to move onto other things and I didn’t want to go to Earth. I didn’t want to manufacture a sequel and I felt like we were starting to do that. If something happens from this, it would be very organic and very original, and because of that, it would make me want to do it. If it was someone as talented as Neill, I’d certainly listen.”
I'm not entirely sure how a Blomkamp Alien would somehow undermine a Scott Prometheus... Unless they release then at the same time (which they'd never do) I see no reason why they can't happily do both.
I am one.
Still happening. So that's some of us happy.
Cool! Now where does this leave the Prometheus sequel?
Yes to this. I think Weyland Yutani itself would make a great setting for a series, even without Ripley.
My take away has always been that the Company was portrayed as "bad." I hear what you're saying, but in this instance you can take Parker at his word because all that "Big Bad Corporate" stuff was put in the script by Giler and Hill (I watched the documentary very recently - O'Bannon wasn't best pleased) - so in "filmic" terms, he's addressing one of the themes.
That aside - everything you, OM, Predxeno and Val have said makes complete sense to me and its a really interesting way of looking at it - if you take each instance (twitchy A2, Burke acting alone, Bishop2 imploring Ripley not to kill herself) it all makes great sense.
You can't really take Parker's word as solid fact, at that point in the movie and what he has been through, he is biased against them, like Ripley eventually becomes. Ash's orders was simply to bring back the life form, other priorities secondary, he wasn't ordered to kill them or given any slight suggestion do so, he just interpretated the orders that way once it became clear that the others intended to kill the Alien which would have made him fail his top priority, I think this is what might have caused him to malfunction (if its not due to what Bishop said)
To ensure that whatever is at the endpoint of that signal is investigated, as per protocol. It could have been alien technology which the Company would have wanted, could have been nothing, either way they didn't know. They don't trust their crews. It's all in the quotes above. Watching the film, you get the sense that without Ash pushing them the crew might not have even gone down there.
Even if this ever would happen, then please no stupid reboots or alternate universes. Hicks is dead and i'm very sure about that nobody wants Newt back. He or they should care a little bit about continuity. Make a real Alien 5 in form of replacing old Ripley with Clone Ripley and the scarred Marine with...i dunno...someone else than Hicks. Just let cheesy and stupid quotes, bubblegum chewing marines and Winona Ryder from Alien 4 out of it this time and it would still work fine. Otherwise Alien Isolation would be the better Alien 5 indeed.
Why then the plot point about him (apparently) being placed on board specifically for the trip? That makes it seems more malignant.
Ridley:
Ash is on the Nostromo as a matter of protocol; it isnt out of the ordinary at all (though it is secretive, since the Company is paranoid).
Ridley again:
A lot of interesting ideas in there that weren't really followed up on in the series.
I don't remember the novel at all and I don't think it's over that Ash is making the decision himself in the movie - I think Parker says "It's the damn company" (after "Ash is a god-damned robot!"? - I'm sure there are folk on here that know the movie line by line, though!)
But "the damn company" seem to be at the core of it and Ripley gets pretty shoddy treatment in Aliens as well.
However - I like the idea of making the company grey as opposed to black. I work for an evil corporation (I really do), but not everyone that works for the Company (see what I did there - capital C yo) is a corporate bastard who'd f**k you over for a goddamned percentage. Some are, but most aren't. However, decisions have to be made - in the case of Alien, WY are seeking a competitive advantage (though I've always asked the question "What could you do with an alien in terms of a bio weapon?" I guess the answer is "They didn't know it can't be controlled" (though Ash's "purity" monologue puts that on shaky ground)
But the idea that not all sci-fi corps are evil is a really good one and plays against the expectations (as you say) set up (intentionally or not) in the Aliens movies. Obviously, ts a theme with many future worlds (OCP, Tyrell, Soylent etc) so it'd be ace to see something that plays against that.
I'm a big advocate of a TV show for the Aliens 'verse and in that sort of set up, you really could get under the skin of that side of things?
You've been using carrot in this context for a while. Where does that come from?
I agree with this, the first three films portray the company in a morally grey light, for all intense and purposes, its just a company and one that has become interested in an alien life-from which they hope to acquire which is in contrast with the silly blatantly evil corporation of Alien Resurrection and most video games, who go around killing people left and right and happily use people as hosts for Xenomorphs.
In the first film, they don't want anyone harmed, but the specimen's priority is higher than the crew and the android Ash then makes its own interpretation of the orders, especially when the humans seek to kill the Alien and acts accordingly (similar to apollo). In the second film, I believe Burke was acting alone, and third film has W-Y make an offer to Ripley, they may have even gone through with it (we will never know), they never killed Morse either when the jaded Ripley believed they would kill witnesses. However, A:CM then has Michael Bishop as a total sociopath who kills people no longer useful to him.
To be fair, in Giler and Hill's intended version that wasn't subtext at all - you were beat over the head with it and repeatedly flogged. The film found some middle ground by rejecting a lot of their ideas and reincorporating O'Bannon's, so we have some nice subtext that doesn't interfere with the film.
https://twitter.com/NeillBlomkamp/status/567504465138180096
In Alien, there wasn't any subtext originally, it was Giler and Hill that put in all the stuff about the evil corporation exploiting the workers for their nefarious gains - but the commentary on Big Bad Company ended up being canon to pretty much all the media set in the 'verse up till now. And to be fair, Aliens was full of subtext about the Vietnam war (still in recent memory in 85/86).
https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fhumourspot.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F%2F2013%2F05%2Fwizard-of-oz-6.gif&hash=828796f9815bf1db3d1630142cc974d910866a22
Hardcore Purist detected!
Who? Oh god. Yeah, you're right, bollocks to god. Please Fox, don't make Alien 5 with Ripley, Hicks or Newt. Aliens wasn't that good, and even if it were the surviving characters were crap and don't need to be revisited.
I honestly don't think many fans give any serious thought to the merits or drawbacks of the world it was trying to create. They just hate it because they hate the film.
Personally, I think the far-future is one of the most interesting places to explore. It just needs a better film to do it.
Ripley still has something of a story left, if they insit finsih her story off but i dont want to see some crackpot story worse with sillier things than colonial marines, resurrection or avp
I think it was one of the Gearbox developers that said "Fox say's A:CM is canon". But I'm sure it can also very easily not become canon.
Even it is - you'd still have to create even more contrivances to link up Hicks with Ripley 8.
Best bet for Blomkamp is - no Hicks - use Ripley 8.
I never thought they do something as retarded as having someone wearing suspiciously similar bandages to Hicks getting thrown into his cryotube in his stead, but then ACM.
I wouldn't put any level of stupidity past them at this point.
The problem with a lot of Alien material isn't the concept, but the execution. The entire production of Alien 3 could have been handled better, the Newborn could have been designed better, and I've discussed many times how AVP could have been done much better with roughly the same plot and budget.
The return of Ripley and Hicks isn't going to be what makes or breaks this possible movie. That will depend on Blomkamp's execution.
We're making pleas to the Almighty now? Then I pray this movie gets made and I hope it makes every last purist and A3 fan melt like the wicked witch from the Wizard of Oz.
But look at who approved it, Fox. Granted we dont know how much they knew abut the story but it was still something they approved, they seemed a lot better about it with isolation, the newest set of novels and fire and stone wasnt too bad. But i would rather them just "play it safe" and do something new and leave the originals alone
ANd by play it saf ei mean dont screw up whats already on rocky ground. Fans cant agree on alien 3 half the time as it is, colonial marines muddied it up and trying to add, or remove anything will jsut make things messier and more complicated than it needs to be.
The only problem i really see is , who all over in fox actually gives a damn about the Alien universe or us(the fans).
Eh, AVPGalaxy is already doing a good job with that.