At one point a few years ago, Neill Blomkamp (District 9, Chappie) was attached to helm a fifth Alien movie before plans fell through.
The project would have served as a direct sequel to James Cameron's Aliens, disregarding the events of Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection by reintroducing Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and Hicks (Michael Biehn).
Concept art did the rounds online, and there was a lot of support from fans of the iconic franchise, but when Ridley Scott decided to return to direct Alien: Covenant, the plug was pulled.
Blomkamp has previously expressed how disappointed he was that his idea for an Alien film never came to fruition, and it's clearly still something of a sore subject.
During an interview with Uproxx to promote his new movie, racing drama Gran Turismo, the filmmaker was quick to shut down a question about his now defunct movie and the direction the Alien franchise is heading in.
Here's the excerpt in full.
Uproxx: Alright, I saw Walter Hill came out recently and said Disney wants to go a different direction with Alien. I enjoyed the production designs you posted on Twitter…
NB: It’s hard to define how little I care about what happens with Alien.
Okay. Well, I think you just defined it pretty well, just with that statement.
Yeah. So I guess I don’t want to talk about that either. I want to talk about Gran Turismo or we shouldn’t talk about…
Sorry, I didn’t hear that last part you said.
Let’s just focus on Gran Turismo.
Well, I mean, yeah, we did for 12 minutes. And I had more about it, too. We’re not done yet. Are you still there?
Yeah.
I did want to ask you about Mardenborough doing his own driving stunts? That’s a pretty cool thing.
Yeah.
Okay. I mean, I don’t know. What happened here?
Well, I mean, we were talking about Gran Turismo, which was interesting.
Right. And I liked the movie.
We’ve spoken about it enough. I guess you have enough info.
Well, no… [The publicist chimes in that it might be time to end this interview.]
All right, cool. I think so, too. See you guys. Bye.
Awkward, to say the least!
This particular concept will likely never see the light of day - with or without Blomkamp - but there is a new Alien movie from director Fede Alvarez in the works, as well as a TV series from Noah Hawley.
What do you guys think? Was the interviewer at fault here, or was Blomkamp way too touchy?