Believe it or not, it's been nearly a decade since we first heard that Neill Blomkamp was developing Alien 5, though the fact this sequel wasn't ever going to become a reality was made apparent some time ago.
The idea had been for Sigourney Weaver to reprise her role as Ellen Ripley, with Michael Biehn back as Cpl. Dwayne Hicks and an adult Newt also expected to take centre stage. The events of the third and fourth movies were expected to be largely ignored, news which came as a relief to fans of Sir Ridley Scott and James Cameron's classic first two instalments.
Over the years, Blomkamp has been attached to a number of sci-fi franchises outside of Alien, including Halo and RoboCop. Those also failed to materialise, and the filmmaker shed some light on why during a recent interview with Empire Online (via SFFGazette.com).
"The stuff that’s hit me the hardest in my own career are the projects that didn’t get made - 'Alien,' predominantly," the District 9 helmer reveals. "[I could have kept working within the US film system] if I was more of a McDonald’s, Burger King-type studio-lackey director that makes one film every year or every 1.5 years."
"Naturally, I’m an artist who doesn’t play the Hollywood game," Blomkamp continued. "When I left, I thought about things and came back with a different point of view about how I’m going to approach Hollywood."
The director has never fully elaborated on why Alien 5 didn't happen, though it's been widely theorised that Scott chose to pull the plug on that in order to focus on his prequel movies which began with Prometheus (which abruptly ended when Alien: Covenant bombed).
Now, we're getting a new Alien TV series from Fargo's Noah Hawley and a movie directed by Fede Alvarez thought to be titled Alien: Romulus.
Do you wish Blomkamp's Alien 5 had become a reality?