Even though Neill Blomkamp’s take on a new Alien movie couldn’t be more dead at this point we still see new concept art and details from it every once in a while. The director himself even opens up about it when making the interview rounds as he did recently while promoting his new movie Demonic. In a new talk, the South African director says that perhaps the reason he was taken off the project so quickly was because franchise co-creator (and continued dabbler) Ridley Scott may have seen his most recent movie at the time, Chappie. Blomkamp told The Guardian, “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.”
He went on to add that he didn’t feel bad for himself for not getting to make the movie but rather franchise star Sigourney Weaver who he says was excited to take part in the project. “I also felt bad for Sigourney because she was really into what I had brought forward,” Blomkamp said. “I felt like [for] audiences who loved Aliens, there was an opportunity to do one more film with Sigourney in a way that may have satiated what people were looking for and what I think I was looking for…..What doesn’t make sense is that I feel like it’s what the audience wanted so it’s strange because Fox would never really turn down money.”
Blomkamp further noted that he hadn’t spoken with Scott since his new film was cancelled, adding: “I’m not gonna work on a film for two years and have the rug pulled out from underneath me and then go hang out and have beers. It’s exactly why I don’t want to do IP based on other people’s stuff ever again.”
The director denied reports that his film is still on saying any new entry in the IP don’t include him.
It was previously reported that Blomkamp’s new film would have pulled a Terminator: Dark Fate and a Halloween (2018), functioning as a direct sequel to Aliens and negating the events of the two Alien sequels that were less well received by fans and critics alike. Among the many reasons that audiences didn’t respond to Alien 3, that it opened with the deaths of beloved characters fans immediately took to Blomkamp’s ideas, even if most of what he teased fans with was concept art he created.
(H/T Bloody Disgusting)
