It’s gone down in sci-fi folklore that District 9 director Neill Blomkamp was once deep into visualizing a fifth installment in the Alien franchise, one that would have served as a direct sequel to James Cameron’s 1986 classic Aliens and brought back Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley and Michael Biehn’s Hicks for a brand new adventure that wouldn’t be beholden to David Fincher’s threequel or Resurrection.
Of course, once Ridley Scott got a Xenomorph itch that he wanted to scratch, Fox decided to favor his plans for Prometheus at the expense of Blomkamp’s project. On one hand it made a lot of sense when Scott had launched the franchise and then spent the next 40 years etching his name in the history books as one of the greatest directors of the modern era, but for a lot of fans Alien 5 will always feel like a missed opportunity.
Blomkamp doesn’t ever think the concept will ever be resurrected, but in a new interview he did admit with the slightest hint of regret that Weaver was fully on board for what he had in mind.
“I also felt bad for Sigourney because she was really into what I had brought forward. I felt like for audiences who loved Aliens, there was an opportunity to do one more film with Sigourney in a way that may have satiated what people were looking for and what I think I was looking for. What doesn’t make sense is that I feel like it’s what the audience wanted so it’s strange because Fox would never really turn down money.”
Every Alien-adjacent rumor tends to circle back around to Ripley eventually, but Alien 5 was the closest it had ever come to being a reality. As prequels, Scott’s Prometheus and Covenant were never going to feature the iconic heroine, and Noah Hawley has made it clear she won’t be involved in the upcoming episodic series, so we could end up ruing the day that Fox let Blomkamp’s Alien 5 slip through their fingers.