Oscar-nominated sci-fil filmmaker Neill Blomkamp blew our minds with District 9, and although his new film Chappie certainly looks a hell of a lot like an action-packed remake of Short Circuit, he’s spent all his time since making original films, resisting the temptation to attach himself to one “sure-fire” property after another. That trend appears to have changed: Neill Blomkamp just revealed that his next film is a sequel to Alien.
The influential and mostly awesome sci-fi series stars Sigourney Weaver – who co-stars in Chappie – as Ellen Ripley, a woman who keeps waking up in outer space to discover a race of alien xenomorphs, designed by the late H.R. Giger, devouring her friends and co-workers.
Blomkamp revealed earlier this year a series of production sketches from a hypothetical Alien movie, seemingly titled Alien: Xeno, which featured images of Ripley’s face on an alien body, and a scarred version of Lance Corporal Hicks, a character who hasn’t been since since James Cameron’s celebrated 1986 sequel Aliens. Hicks died between the events of Aliens and David Fincher’s Alien 3, much to the frustration of the franchise’s fans.
Whether the concept art revealed by Blomkamp is actually a clear indication of his sequel’s storyline remains to be seen. Neill Blomkamp’s Alien sequel does not appear to be an impediment to Ridley Scott’s Prometheus franchise, which takes place before the events of the original series.
A sequel to Prometheus is currently scheduled for release sometime in 2016, with both Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender expected to reprise their roles from the previous film.
Curiously enough, Neill Blomkamp originally rose to prominence as the unlikely director attached to a live-action feature film version of the video game Halo, which – like many games, films and TV series about space marines – makes a number of references to James Cameron’s Aliens. When that production fell apart, Blomkamp moved on to the extraterrestrial immigration action-drama District 9, which went on to be nominated for multiple Academy Awards, including Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture of the Year.
CraveOnline will be back with more updates on Neill Blomkamp’s Alien sequel as the details come in.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast and The Blue Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
