Neil Blomkamp, director of “District 9” and the forthcoming “Chappie” has locked a deal with 20th Century Fox to bring everyone’s favorite xenomorphs back to the big screen.
Two months ago, he posted a variety of images from a fan-film version of a sequel to James Cameron’s “Aliens,” lamenting the inability to ever make the film. It was a bizarre take that would have discarded “Alien 3” and “Alien: Resurrection” from the canon of “Alien” films, instead favoring a story that picks up years later with Hicks and Ripley.
But that small act of social media launched Blomkamp into actual talks with Fox that seem to have paid off this week. He posted to his Instagram a picture of a Xenomorph, announcing that this was his next project.
Many are jumping to the conclusion that Fox bought Blomkamp and his unused pitch for a fan film that he posted about a couple of months ago, but Variety reports that his “Alien” film will be produced by Ridley Scott and take place some years after “Prometheus,” and is separate from that film’s sequel, which Scott is still attached to direct.
I would have minor reservations about Blomkamp’s original vision for the “Alien” film he originally pitched via social media. As much as I love “Aliens,” I felt David Fincher’s “Alien 3” and Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s “Alien: Resurrection” are incredibly fun, interesting, and valid interpretations in the life of both Ellen Ripley and the Xenomorph. Though I would live with those films being overwritten, I wouldn’t necessarily be happy about it unless the resulting film turned out to be the unyielding vision of Neil Blomkamp and not the meddled version of suits at 20th Century Fox. And they don’t exactly have a reputation of letting visionaries do their work in peace, especially when it comes to the “Alien” franchise.
But based on the Variety article, I don’t think we’ll worry about that and we’ll be getting something new, which thrills me to no end.
At this point, there is no release date or timeline for the release of Blomkamp’s “Alien” film.