“It’s possible that Ridley watched Chappie and he was like, this guy can’t do Alien so let’s just go ahead and move on,” Blomkamp told The Guardian in 2021. Blomkamp reportedly worked on the project for two years before it was abruptly and permanently cancelled, seemingly at the behest of Scott himself. Not so long ago, director Neill Blomkamp came close to making a direct sequel to 1986’s Aliens, with Sigourney Weaver reprising her role as Ripley and Michael Biehn returning as an acid-scarred Hicks. That Álvarez’s Alien movie is even in production is quite an achievement. (We can guess what the terrifying life form is that terrorises young people: if it isn’t a landlord, then it’s almost certainly the Alien.) “In this ninth entry in the immensely popular and enduring film series,” reads the film’s recent press release, “a group of young people on a distant world find themselves in a confrontation with the most terrifying life form in the universe.” Like last year’s Predator prequel-reboot, Prey, it’s also a lower-budget film destined for the streaming outlet, Hulu. For one thing, it’s being billed as a standalone movie rather than a sequel or prequel, which means it’s automatically exempt from dwelling on the tangents that Ridley Scott meandered off on in his recent Alien films – giant, bald aliens, life-creating goo, androids with god complexes, and so on. With a youthful cast – Isabela Merced, Cailee Spaeny and Archie Renaux are among the names confirmed so far – it sounds like the movie will take something approaching a back-to-basics approach to the xenomorph. On the film side of things, we have writer-director Fede Álvarez’s Alien project, scheduled to start filming in Budapest on 9 March. On television, there’s Noah ( Fargo) Hawley’s long-in-gestation Alien series, which will take place on Earth and will also serve as a prequel to Alien in 2022 FX boss John Landgraf confirmed that the show “takes place before Ripley” and that Sigourney Weaver’s signature character would have no part in the narrative. That Disney acquisition does, however, leave the franchise open to a new generation of storytellers. To date, Ridley Scott’s proposed Alien: Covenant sequel, one of two potential movies he once said would eventually connect up to the events of the original Alien, hasn’t been formally cancelled, but it doesn’t appear to be any further along than it was four years ago, either. Opinions were also divided over 2017’s Alien: Covenant, Ridley Scott’s second prequel to Alien, and the box-office takings were so tepid that 20th Century Fox didn’t exactly race to make a follow-up before it was purchased by Disney in 2019. For every out-and-out classic like James Cameron’s Aliens, we’ve had to endure such tawdry efforts as Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem, or the ill-fated videogame, Aliens: Colonial Marines. Giger, Dan O’Bannon, Sigourney Weaver, and too many others to list – has allowed Alien to endure changing tastes and some decidedly variable sequels and spin-offs. Indeed, the ‘perfect organism’ originally conjured up by director Ridley Scott and his collaborators – among them H.R. The sight of slippery, toothsome parasite punching its way through John Hurt’s ribcage sent a shudder through cinemas in 1979, and the strength of Alien’s atmosphere and imagery was such that it’s survived as a franchise for over 45 years. Try three issues of Film Stories magazine – for just £1: right here!
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