‘Alien 5′ Put on Hold as ‘Prometheus’ Sequel Moves Forward
Logan Marshall-Green, Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender in ‘Prometheus’ (Fox)
Ridley Scott, not Neill Blomkamp, will write the next chapter of the Alien franchise.
Earlier this year, Blomkamp, the director of District Nine and Chappie, began planning and publicly campaigning for the opportunity to direct a long-awaited fifth Alien film. He eventually got the gig from 20th Century Fox, and continued posting new art from pre-production. But now the 36-year-old filmmaker will have to put his plans on hold. Instead, Fox is focusing on Ridley Scott’s upcoming sequel to Prometheus, the 2012 film that served as a prequel of sorts to his original 1979 sci-fi thriller Alien.
alien is kinda holding/ pending prometheus 2. So I shall be working on other things… as much as I love the xeno- and Lt ripley
— Иeill BlomkΛmp (@NeillBlomkamp) October 30, 2015
In an interview with Yahoo Movies last month, Scott revealed that the Prometheus sequel will feature archaeologist Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and android David (Michael Fassbender), and have them “go to the world of the Engineer” — the creators of the Xenomorph — to “find out who would design such an awful bio-mechanoid creature.”
Given the monster success of Scott’s latest film, The Martian ($393 million worldwide so far) the 78-year-old British director is the obvious bet — especially given Chappie’s failure last March. Blomkamp has not announced any other projects, though it seems several are in development based on his tweet.
