Caffeinated Clint
A couple of years ago, big-time sci-fi nut Neil Blomkamp let rip that he was trying to convince Fox to let him make a direct sequel to James Cameron’s Reagan-era masterpiece “Aliens”.
The plan, as the South African director told Twitter followers and the like, was to set the film directly after that film – and essentially forget what happened on the lice-infested planet after and, more importantly, to the poor sods in the sleeping capsules. He’d have Sigourney Weaver and Michael Biehn reprise their roles as Ripley and Hicks, respectively. Both actors were onboard with the idea.
The filmmaker, known for his cinéma vérité technique, had done quite a bit of prep work in the lead up to his meeting with the studio too – most notably, crafting some damn impressive storyboards.
Unfortunately, Fox didn’t want to do it – at the time, they were too concerned with supporting Ridley Scott’s vision for the “Alien” prequel series that began with “Prometheus”.
So like Cage Creed, the project was squished.
But like little Cage, that doesn’t mean things can’t unexpectedly return.
Seems Jim Cameron, who directed the film Blomkamp wanted to sequelize, is somewhat of a fan of Blomkamp’s idea (he hated the fact David Fincher’s “Alien 3″ killed off Hicks and Newt) and a quick vox-pop reveals he’s trying to make it happen.
At the ”Battle Angel Alita” red carpet, Cameron (who produced the former), was asked by IGN whether he might consider producing Blomkamp’s “Alien 5” idea now that he’s finished producing a new “Terminator” film (with Tim Miller at the helm) :
Okay, it’s not much, but fact that Cameron has some heavy sway with Fox (who he is making a dozen “Avatar” pictures with) and pretty much has a golden ticket as far as dream projects go, suggests we mightn’t have seen the last of the highly-anticipated “Aliens” sequel. Helps that there’s no movement on any new “Prometheus” sequels, too.
Cameron had said previously that he’d read Blomkamp’s script for the film and thought it worked “gangbusters. He shared it with me, and I think it’s a very strong script and he could go make it tomorrow. I don’t know anything about the production, and I don’t know what Ridley [Scott]’s doing. But hopefully there’ll be room for both of them. Like parallel universes.”
