Originally published June 4, 2017. Updated January 23, 2020.
Some bad news for anyone holding out hope that 20th Century Fox could resurrect Neill Blomkamp’s planned Alien 5, as the filmmaker has revealed to The Verge that the project is “totally dead”.
“I think it’s totally dead, yes,” said Blomkamp. “That would be an accurate assumption at this point. It’s sad. I spent a long time working on that, and I feel like it was really pretty awesome. But politically, the way it’s gone now, and the way that it all is — it’s just not going to live.”
Asked whether studio politics has played a part, Blomkamp responded that: “Yeah. Ridley Scott was one of my idols growing up. He’s so talented and he’s made this film that really set me off in a direction. I want to just be as respectful and not go stamping around in this world that he created. I think that if the circumstances were different, and I didn’t feel like I was getting too close to something that he obviously feels a massive personal connection to, that things that may have played out differently. But I did want to be as respectful as possible.”
SEE ALSO: Neill Blomkamp’s Alien 5 never had a script, according to Ridley Scott
Blomkamp’s plans for an Alien sequel was first revealed back in January of 2015 when the director shared some concept art featuring Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and Hicks (Michael Biehn). It was then announced in February that Fox was moving ahead with the project, which would have reportedly ignored the events of Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection. However, the studio placed it on indefinite hold when Ridley Scott decided to move ahead with Alien: Covenant, and it would seem that Scott’s plans for at least two movie Alien movies have proved to be the final nail in the coffin.
