Coming off the success of The Martian, Ridley Scott seems to be throwing his weight around, garnering some bad blood from fans by apparently bumping Neill Blomkamp’s Alien sequel (loosely called Alien 5) to ensure his Prometheus follow-up releases first. That pushes Blomkamp’s film back to at least last 2017. The South African director graciously acknowledged the news on Twitter this week:
alien is kinda holding/ pending prometheus 2. So I shall be working on other things… as much as I love the xeno- and Lt ripley
— Иeill BlomkΛmp (@NeillBlomkamp) October 30, 2015
Though Prometheus earned $403 million at the box office and received strong critical reviews, it’s been widely panned by fans for being philosophically heavy, confusing, and dull. During production Scott said that the storyline only shared “strands of DNA” with the original Alien franchise; not enough for fans who’ve waiting more than 30 years to get back to Ripley’s world.
Joss Whedon, who penned the script for Alien: Resurrection, took a stab at an Alien 5 storyline which would have been set on earth, but Sigourney Weaver had no interest. That was in the late 1990s, when Whedon’s biggest credit was Buffy, so she’s to be forgiving for not entirely trusting his vision.
Blomkamp, who’s proven his sci-fi story and production abilities with District 9 and Elysium, got the Alien job in the most un-Hollywood way. While working on Chappie with Weaver, he mined her memories and thoughts about the original franchise and her iconic character. Inspired by the conversations, he self-funded concept art which he then released online before ever having a conversation with the Fox studios.
Some of Blomkamp’s concept art
On the strength of his vision, Fox pulled the director in for meetings and handed him the reins to revive the series. Since it appeared to be in good hands, fans were happy, and in an interview with Coming Soon he revealed:
“My favorite film of all time is Aliens. Period. James Cameron’s Aliens. What Elysium doesn’t have that I’d like to put into the next film is slime and eggs. It’s missing slime and eggs.”
Blomkamp’s idea seems to pick up the story after 1986’s Aliens (more details on that plan here). One important strength to his project was that he had full buy-in from Weaver, who’s been wanting to get back to Ripley for years. The fact that she worked with him previously and backs his vision is key. Ridley Scott was still, naturally, brought on to the project as a producer.
Scott had already been set up at Fox to produce more films in the Prometheus world. This fall he told German film site Film Futter that he actually envisions several more movies that set up the world of Alien and explain how the xenomorphs came to be.
“It won’t be in the next one. It will be in the one after this one or maybe even a fourth film before we get back into the Alien franchise.”
Granted, in the same interview he also made this nutty comment:
“I always thought of the Alien as kind of a piece of bacterial warfare. I always thought that that original ship, which I call the Croissant, was a battleship, holding these biomechanoid creatures that were all about destruction.”
Okey-dokey.
Michael Fassbender in ‘Prometheus’
Back in August, Blomkamp was still working on the Alien 5 script while Scott was in pre-production on his project. Over time it became clear that Blomkamp would have to make some tweaks to line up mythologies and create some kind of cohesive storyline between the projects. Scott then renamed his movie Alien: Paradise Lost, a move which made fans wonder if he was moving in on Blomkamp’s ideas to beef up his own film.
I don’t think we have much to worry about, since that title indicates this one could be as esoteric as the last. (That’s not a good thing.) Blomkamp is simply a grittier filmmaker these days than Scott, more in line with the look and feel fans loves in the original films. And since he’s a fan of the series, we can trust the story is in good hands.
Just from a development standpoint, it seems logical that Prometheus would have been ready to go before Alien 5 anyway, so it’s unclear why Blomkamp had to put his whole project on hold, unless his work has made Scott rethink his whole plan for the Prometheus series. Now the concern is that Ripley is going to get stuck in development hell, particularly since Prometheus far out-performed all four of the original Alien films.
Logic would state that’s because audiences flocked to Prometheus hoping to get back some of the original magic that Scott brought to screen the first time around. Since that was a bust, logic would also state that fans will flock to this new Blomkamp project, featuring Weaver, over another uninspired trip with Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender.
Here’s hoping that logic prevails soon and Hollywood recognizes the value of the team they have working on Alien 5. Weaver is scheduled for James Cameron’s Avatar sequel and once production gets underway for that, it could be even longer before Blomkamp gets this chance again.
alien alien: paradise lost neill blomkamp prometheus ridley scott