As I’m typing this it’s finally sinking in that we’re getting another Alien movie instead of the Prometheus sequel nobody wanted (they’re probably one in the same). Yes, Ridley Scott has completed filming on Alien: Covenant, which will bring the scares back to the Alien universe in a prequel slated for release on May 19, 2017.
I get goosebumps every single time I write something about the movie, although it saddens me that it came at the expense of another Alien film. You see, Neill Blomkamp (Elysium, Chappie, District 9) had penned a sequel to James Cameron’s Aliens that would continue the story from the end of the 1986 film and ignore all of the following sequels.
Sigourney Weaver had agreed to return, and Twentieth Century Fox was moving forward. That was until Scott had decided he wanted to get back to work on his Prometheus sequel, which eventually turned into an Alien prequel (it’s just a name change, you see?). Did Blomkamp’s film make Scott jealous? Maybe he was afraid of the franchise being taken out of his grasp? Or maybe it was the success of the new Star Wars prequels? Whatever the case, Scott gets what he wants in this case, and Blomkamp’s Aliens sequel was killed (allegedly it’s just on the backburner, but we’ll see).
While we’ve heard just about everything we’re going to about Blomkamp’s planned sequel, it’s nice to get updates from Weaver confirming that she’s still holding out hope. In fact, in a new interview with Variety she confirms that his Alien would end Ripley’s story, which was something she had been campaigning for-for years (she always wanted Ripley to return to the Xeno home planet to “kill them all”).
“I hope that Neill Blomkamp and I will eventually get back to it. He’s written such a wonderful script. I look forward to finishing Ripley’s story.“
Yes, Blomkamp’s Alien was to end Ripley’s nightmare and put her to rest, finally. It could have closed the gaps in the franchise, given closure to Ripley’s arc, and offered fans the perfect finale they’ve been clamoring for, while also reigniting the franchise in a new direction for the studio.
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Who knows, though, if it’s really dead. Weaver wants it, and she’s got some power. If Scott wants it, and his Alien: Covenant beats the living shit out of the box office (it will), he could demand that it be put back into development. But, as Scott has stated many times before, Covenant is a new trilogy, which means that he’s going to be incredibly busy telling his story that’s to eventually bridge Prometheus into Alien. When is there time for Blomkamp’s story to be told? I really, truly, wholeheartedly think it’s dead. Let’s just hope that he releases the screenplay online so we can see what he put together over the one year that was filled with hopes and dreams for Ripley’s character.
Alien: Covenant – here’s everything we know so far – takes off for Paradise on May 19, 2017.
