In 1979 Ridley Scott deftly merged the genres of horror and science fiction with his legendary film, Alien. Then 57 years later, Ellen Ripley would face off against the xenomorph threat again – and this time she’d have backup. OK it was actually only 7 years later that Jim Cameron, would continue on where Scott had left off with his sequel, Aliens. And although it’s more of a sci-fi action thriller and less horror, it has a definite place in the franchise and is a classic in its own right.
Then there was Alien 3, the fork in the road so to speak. This third installment was left in the hands of rookie director, David Fincher, despite the fact that they didn’t really seem to trust him enough to direct it according to his vision. Fincher cited incessant studio intrusion as the biggest reason he not only couldn’t make the film he wanted, butr was also why he walked off the production just prior to editing. And of course many of us know what Joss Whedon thinks about what they did with his creative vision for Alien: Rsuerrection. You know that expression, “I’m not mad, just very disappointed”? That expression that when your parents would say it, was more of a gut punch than them saying they were mad. Yeah, that’s pretty much where Whedon stands when looking at the ham-fisted way his script was executed.
Okay my Little Monsters we’ve gotten to that point you’ve been waiting for. The one where I tie up the loose ends involving Ridley Scott, Niell Blomkamp and the possibility of an Alien 5.
In a video interview for ALLOCINE, Scott was asked a question about the fate of Blomkamp’s Alien 5 (at the 11:31 mark) at which point he gave an answer that may break some fan’s hearts while making others possibly breathe a sigh of relief.
“Well, there was never a script, it was an idea which was evolved on, I think, a ten page pitch, and I was meant to be in part a producer on that. And it didn’t evolve, Fox decided they didn’t want to do it. So that was it…I think I had already done Prometheus and I was already planning Covenant.”
As we are all aware of by now, Blomkamp’s Alien sequel would be the fifth film in the series only in number, as he wished to jump straight from Aliens, over 3 and Resurrection, to his film. And while it may not have sit well with some fans, there are others that would have been overjoyed to see Hicks and Ripley reunited in a fight against their old foe.
Blomkamp’s films have displayed a clear penchant for all things sci-fi or alien related. And while he has shown he has the chops to pull off a fifth installment, it seems the studio is more invested in showing us the events that lead up to our introduction to the crew of the star freighter Nostromo, and their ill fated visit to LV-426.
Now Blomkamp is still a young bloke, who will hopefully have a lot of good, creative film-making years in him. But unfortunately for him and many of us, a new Alien film that pairs Riley and Hicks against the xenomorphs just isn’t in the cards. That is unless they want o go the Indiana Jones 5 route and have their main characters be well into their seventies. I can just see it, Ripley rolling up on an armored Class 2 Hoveround to face the alien queen and screaming, “Get away from her, you bitch!”
