Neill Blomkamp’s Alien movie to go ahead

A while back, director Neill Blomkamp – famous for District 9, Elysium and the upcoming Chappie – released some startling concept art for an Alien film he had been dreaming up. But back then, it appeared that Blomkamp’s idea was just that – an idea, and nothing more. But in some incredible news, the director revealed via Twitter that 20th Century Fox has signed on for his movie:

Um… So I think it's officially my next film. #alien http://t.co/QO5WrH2d6x

— Neill Blomkamp (@NeillBlomkamp) February 18, 2015

Variety then confirmed the story, reporting that Fox has closed the deal with Blomkamp to make his Alien. Naturally, the project is so far untitled, and as far as we know won’t interfere with Ridley Scott’s planned Prometheus 2. This should be great news for movie fans: 2009’s District 9 was arguably one of the best sci-fi pictures in recent memory, and with Blomkamp’s talent, there is every chance that he could turn out one of the best entries in the much loved series. Interestingly, in an interview with Uproxx a few days ago, the director mentioned that working with Sigourney Weaver on Chappie ignited the ideas he had for an Alien film:

‘Speaking to Sigourney Weaver, when we were doing Chappie, she set off a bunch of thoughts in my head — I had come up with an idea that didn’t have Sigourney, it was a different idea. But I spent all of the shooting time with her, it was like, holy shit, that could actually be really interesting. When I came back to Vancouver, I had an entire year to work on Chappie. And when I wasn’t needed in the edit, I could think about Alien. So, I basically developed an entire movie and I did all of this artwork as well.’

But does that necessarily mean that Weaver has already spoken with Blomkamp about reprising her iconic role as Ripley? Her aged character does pop up in the original concept art, along with an older Michael Biehn as a deformed / cybernetic Dwayne Hicks. There’ll hopefully be more details to come soon, so keep checking back at Flickreel for the updates as they come. We think this could be a big, bold new direction for Alien – what do you think? Let us know in the comments below.