It was a bit disappointing to say the least when we heard that Neill Blomkamp’s Alien sequel, which would have brought back Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley and probably Michael Biehn as Hicks, had been pushed back indefinitely to make room for Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant.
However, according to Weaver, we shouldn’t lose hope.
Speaking at VMWare (via Agressive Comix), Weaver was asked if Blomkamp’s Alien movie was still on the cards.
“Well, I *think* it is,” she replied. “Ridley asked Neill NOT to make our Alien til after Prometheus 2. He (Ridley) wanted his movie to shoot and be released first. But it’s an AMAZING script, and Neill and I are REALLY excited about doing it. We’re doing other things until we can get going on that. I’d be really surprised if we DIDN’T do it, because it’s such a great script, and we love working together. So, it’s just going to take a little bit longer to get out to you, but it’ll be worth the wait.”
As you probably remember, Blomkamp’s Alien sequel got moving after he shared some concept art he’d made online, at which point Fox decided that they like what they saw. Having worked with Blomkamp on the underrated Chappie (yes, it’s underrated, deal with it), Weaver seemed very excited about the prospect of bringing Ripley back for the first time since 1997’s Alien: Resurrection.
However, it seems like it basically all depends on Scott. Alien: Covenant is filming now and he’s been very vocal about the fact that it’s going to be more obviously tied in to the Alien universe than Prometheus was. He also wants to make this a prequel trilogy, so that’s at least one more film to make…Will Blomkamp have to wait for the third movie before he can get going on his Ripley story? Because, dammit, we really want to see Ellen Ripley back in action.
Alien: Covenant will be released on 4 August 2017. Keep up with the latest genre news with the new issue of SciFiNow.
