Placed firmly on the back-burner so as not to detract from Ridley Scott’s Prometheus 2 – now officially titled Alien: Covenant – Neill Blomkamp’s impassion vision for an Alien sequel continues to languish in production, though series stalwart Sigourney Weaver assured longtime fans of the franchise that it’ll be “worth the wait.”
Set to pick up the story strands from 1986’s Aliens, including Weaver reprising her role as one Ellen Ripley and Michael Biehn’s Corporal Hicks, Blomkamp’s follow-up will largely ignore the middling sequels that came after James Cameron’s seminal sequel. And though Fox has officially placed the director’s feature “on hold,” Weaver is confident the as-yet-untitled Alien 5 can enter production in the years that follow Covenant.
When quizzed about the status of the long-gestating passion project, the actress revealed that the core script at the acidic heart of Blomkamp’s vision is “amazing.”
“Well, I think it is. Ridley asked Neill not to make our Alien ’til after ‘Prometheus 2.’ [Ridley] wanted his movie to shoot and be released first. But it’s an amazing script, and Neill and I are really excited about doing it,” she said. “We’re doing other things until we can get going on that. I’d be really surprised if we didn’t do it, because it’s such a great script, and we love working together. So, it’s just going to take a little bit longer to get out to you, but it’ll be worth the wait.”
Keeping those hope alive, Weaver went on to tentatively place Alien 5 after Covenant on Fox’s sprawling timeline.
“I’m producing [Blomkamp’s movie]. It’s designed to go next after [‘Alien: Covenant’],” the director said in October. [“His version] is more associated with Ripley. It’s coming from a completely different angle. It’s kind of more of a sequel… after, after after. I’m coming at it from the back end.”
Alien: Covenant has been pegged to slither onto the big screen on August 4, 2017. As for Blomkamp’s passion project, don’t expect Alien 5 to make its bow until late 2018 at the very earliest.