Last month Chappie, Elysium and District 9 director Neill Blomkamp released a ton of concept art he had created for a hypothetical Alien sequel involving the return of the franchise's hero, Ellen Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver. At the time, Blomkamp mentioned that it was merely fan artwork he had done on his own time, that nothing more would come of it. However, yesterday during publicity rounds for his latest film, Chappie, Blimkamp revealed that Fox were indeed interested in his Alien concepts and were even willing to pursue making a film with him as the director. Continuing from there, Sigourney Weaver who stars in Chappie, also discussed the possibility of Blomkamp's Alien film and seemed eager to jump on board; confident that Neill would bring something new, something organic to the franchise.
"He kept sending me these brilliant designs and ideas and everything. We’ll see what happens. We just left it at such a creepy place, sort of stranded above Earth. I was quite happy to move onto other things and I didn’t want to go to Earth. I didn’t want to manufacture a sequel and I felt like we were starting to do that. If something happens from this, it would be very organic and very original, and because of that, it would make me want to do it. If it was someone as talented as Neill, I’d certainly listen."
During the interview, not on camera, CS asked Blomkamp about the concept art he had released, asking if it was for a legitimate project or just for fun. The director responded by saying:
“It was sort of both,” he responded. “Fox didn’t know that I was developing it, so in that sense, it was completely unsanctioned and just basically for fun. To me, it wasn’t for fun. To me, that was what I wanted to do next, and I spent a lot of time doing it, and there was a lot of effort that went into. Like when I could take breaks between Chappie’s post-production winding down as VFX got under control.”
“The issue was more like whether I feel like directing another film at all,” he continued. “Not really whether Alien is the right or wrong film, if that makes sense. (Sigourney) knows about it and part of it was just inspired by speaking to her on set when we were filming Chappie, and getting her thoughts on Alien and what she thought of the movies that came after Aliens and what she felt about Ripley and what was incomplete for her about Ripley. There was so much fuel in what she was telling me.”
He added: “Alien and Aliens are probably my favorite films so was I was like, ‘Sh*t, I wouldn’t mind messing around in that world for a bit’ so I just sort of self-funded the artists to work on the artwork. I did way more artwork than I released, probably ten times more and did a lot of writing. I have a pretty cool film just in case it happens.”
With more and more talk about this untitled Alien project making the rounds online, it's likely Fox will take this opportunity seriously. Fans across the web are eager for more Alien and if any new director could handle the franchise and keep it grounded to its roots, Neill Blomkamp can.
Continue discussing this topic as well as thousands more with other fans of Alien, Predator and Alien vs. Predator (AvP) in the AvP Online Forums here on AliensVersusPredator.net!
