Neil Blomkamp already has Sigourney Weaver on board to play Ripley and his upcoming ‘Alien’ sequel will completely ignore the events of ‘Alien 3’ and ‘Alien Resurrection’…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
The excitement surrounding Neill Blomkamp’s take on the popular ‘Alien’ franchise took off after an announcement was made last week with the director signing on to do a sequel for the series following his work on the upcoming film ‘Chappie’.
Now some more details are starting to come to light regarding Blomkamp’s ideas for the upcoming movie including a huge change to the ‘Alien’ universe including a new story and ending for lead character Ellen Riply (played by Sigourney Weaver).
Originally rumors placed Blomkamp’s ‘Alien’ movie in the prequel universe following ‘Prometheus’ — a less than well received attempt at telling the origin story of the species first ‘discovered’ in the 1979 film ‘Alien’ by Ridley Scott.
Now it seems Blomkamp’s vision — along with Scott, who is signed on as an executive producer — will instead recreate the ‘Alien’ franchise by forgetting that ‘Alien 3’ released in 1992 and ‘ Alien: Resurrection’ released in 1997, ever happened.
“I want this film to feel like it is literally the genetic sibling of Aliens,” Blomkamp said when speaking to Sky Movies. “So it’s Alien, Aliens and then this movie.”
The 1986 film ‘Aliens’ directed by James Cameron is a beloved movie in the series as Ripley sets down on the planet LV-426 with a group of Marines to investigate a colony full of inhabitants losing contact with Earth after discovering the alien ship that first infected her crewmates in the original film, set 57 years earlier.
The subsequent sequel ‘Alien 3’ was directed by David Fincher but wasn’t met with a ton of rave reviews after the story essentially wiped out the events from the previous film. A fourth movie — ‘Alien Resurrection’ written by Joss Whedon — took place 200 years after the events in ‘Alien 3’ and again the film didn’t live up to expectations from fans or reviewers.
Now it appears Blomkamp wants to fix all of that with his new ‘Aliens’ movie, which will pick up after the events of the second film from 1986.
Sigourney Weaver is already on board to reprise her role as Ripley (she also stars in Blomkamp’s upcoming film ‘Chappie’) and she was excited with the prospect of wiping the slate clean and staring over again with a new film following the events in ‘Aliens’.
“I would love to take Ripley out of orbiting around in space and give a proper finish to what was such an excellent story,” Weaver said.
The second ‘Aliens’ film ended with Ripley leaving the orbit around LV-426 with Corporal Duane Hicks (played by Michael Biehn) and Newt (played by Carrie Henn), a young child who is the only survivor from the colony.
Blomkamp’s film will pick up after those events with Weaver already on board to play Ripley again. It’s unknown if Biehn would return as Hicks, although he remains active in his career doing tons of film work over the years. Henn, 38, on the other hand hasn’t acted since the 1986 film and outside of a few public appearances at conventions has largely avoided the spotlight.
It’s unclear how far into the future Blomkamp will set his film, but there is a ton of anticipation about the story and the resurrection of the ‘Aliens’ franchise after being dormant for so many years.
