Neill Blomkamp‘s ALIEN film is not a sure thing, which makes every bit of information that comes our way about it so fascinating. Word is that 20th Century Fox wanted to jump on Ridley Scott‘s ALIEN: COVENANT first, as odd as that sounds, but fortunately for us, Sigourney Weaver is as excited as she ever was to reprise the role of Ellen Ripley for Mr. Blomkamp. In speaking with Entertainment Weekly, she had some information to offer about the direction of the story and the end of Ripley.
Sigourney Weaver on Blomkamp’s ALIEN film:
Well, we have a great script. Fox asked us to delay so Ridley Scott could shoot his [second] Prometheus movie. That was too bad because we would have already done it by now. Now that we’re waiting for that, I have a couple of AVATARs to do and Neill has THE GONE WORLD, so we’ll have to see what happens when we get back, when those projects are over. The script itself has so much in it that’s so original, but also really satisfies the, I would say, the primal needs of the aliens. It’s a tribute to all of the great work that the other directors have done, in a way, but goes in a completely new direction. I hope we’ll do it. It’s a great story and it’s satisfying to me to give this woman an ending.
Regarding the story direction:
It’s just as if, you know, the path forks and one direction goes off to three and four and another direction goes off to Neill’s movie. It’s just more, I would say, following Jim Cameron’s story about these characters, rather than just ending up in this sort of monastery in space, which was (ALIEN 3 screenwriter) Vincent Ward’s idea and Fox elected to go in that direction. I think Fincher was fine with that. Each director kind of wanted to create a whole new set of circumstances. In this case, it picks up, it follows directly the circumstances of Jim Cameron’s Aliens.
On when we might see this ALIENS sequel:
In any case, [the Aliens sequel] is there and waiting for us. He and I both have these other commitments that are finally upon us, and so we’ve got to switch gears and concentrate on that. But it will be worth the wait when we finally get to it. I hope it won’t be a few [years]. I hope it’ll be a couple. But we’ll see. Yeah.
Personally, I’m taking away two very important points from this conversation. One is that Blomkamp’s film will deliver some serious fan service, for better and for worse. Two is that no one really knows if/when this thing is going to start production. To ALIEN fans, this idea seems like a no-brainer, but who knows what Fox wants regarding this franchise. PROMETHEUS earned a profit, despite dividing audiences. I suppose we could say the same for Blomkamp’s last two movies, despite poor reception. Still, I hope this doesn’t end up a pipe dream, despite sounding about 25 years too late.
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