Lacey Bridges
A few months ago, “District 9” filmmaker Neill Blomkamp tweeted that he’d approached 20th Century Fox with the idea to do a direct sequel to James Cameron’s “Aliens” – one that would pretty much ignore the events of “Alien 3” and “Alien Resurrection”.
Taking place several decades after the 1986 movie, the film would reunite Sigourney Weaver and Michael Biehn and see them both headed back into chestbuster territory for a tale that was “gangbusters”, according to Cameron, who had read Blomkamp’s treatment.
When Ridley Scott announced his plans to direct a sequel to “Prometheus”, one that would be closer in tone to it’s parent franchise, “Alien”, Blomkamp’s film was put on the back burner. And it gets worse..
“I think it will never see the light”, Scott tells Allocine. “There was never a scenario, just an idea that evolved into a pitch of ten pages, I had to participate as a producer but it did not go any further because the Fox decided that they did not want to do it. I had already done Prometheus and worked on Covenant.”
While Fox was keen on the idea, the studio had never officially greenlit the project so to say it’s cancelled would presume the movie had been commissioned. It hasn’t. Still, we do hope it’s not as dead as Scott makes out.
“Alien: Covenant” is set to open in cinemas on May 19th.
