For all the promise and budding potential it once showed, Neill Blomkamp’s vision for Alien 5 has effectively been shelved in order to clear a path for Ridley Scott’s upcoming sequel Alien: Covenant, which is now on course for a release in late 2017.
Couple this with the fact that Blomkamp himself has, at least for the time being, moved on to work on Fox’s adaptation of The Gone World and it would seem that we won’t be seeing the director’s dream project anytime soon – if at all. But perhaps in a reaction to this news, we’re beginning to learn more and more about Blomkamp’s pitch for the quasi-sequel, which would have subtly written off both Alien 3 and Alien 4.
[zerg]That’s according to Corporal Hicks himself, Michael Biehn, who spoke to Icons of Fright recently about the approach the South African filmmaker wanted to take to this most prestigious universe.
“The basic idea is acting like ‘Alien’ 3 and 4 never existed… I know Ridley Scott is doing his movie first and is going to be the executive producer on this one, so I’m really looking forward to that. I know that Ridley’s focus is on [‘Alien: Covenant’] and I’m sure that he and Fox both don’t want that and Neill’s movie to come out right next to each other, because they’re kind of two different worlds, with ‘Aliens’ taking place thousands of years later, which is how they explained it all to me, but at the same time, they want to give them a similar feel,” he explained. “I know they’re putting the brakes on Neill’s movie just for a little while, but I really think that it would be embarrassing to Ridley and Fox and Sigourney [Weaver] if they just didn’t make the movie.”
Exploring the almost mother-daughter dynamic between Sigourney Weaver’s returning Ellen Ripley and Newt (Carrie Henn), the reticent young girl who was caught amid the battle on Acheron, Biehn then reveals that Alien 5 was designed to welcome back the character at 27 years of age.
“They’re planning on bringing me and Newt back and at this point Newt will be around twenty-seven years old,” Biehn said. “I know that every actress in Hollywood is going to want to play this one, it’s really a passing of the torch between Sigourney and this younger actress who would play Newt.
Finally, as reported by Scified, Ridley Scott’s upcoming Alien: Covenant may wind up featuring two breeds of Xenomorphs. For all the talk of the director being finished with “the beast,” the outlet stipulates that the two decidedly different monstrosities would essentially embody the old and the new, with the latter being an Ultramorph – that is, a exceedingly large alien birthed from an Engineer, as opposed to a regular old human. Said concept remains unconfirmed for now, but it is interesting nonetheless.
The movie will have 2 Monsters, one is new and both are different yet similar to the Xeno DNA. The NEW Monster is a New Event, so it’s nothing created before the Events of the end of the First movie…. it’s created by an event in the movie… and this New Monster is going to be based off of the Original Concept that Alien drew influence from, and this idea is something they had planned with Spaights’ Ultramorph and so Gigers Necomonicon 4 is the starting point. This Monster will be transparent like a Jelly Fish to a degree… and it’s hinted that David plays a part in its creation.
While Alien 5 continues to collect dust on the proverbial shelf, Alien: Covenant is expected to slither into theaters – Xenomorphs in tow? – on October 6, 2017.