Alien Day: Neill Blomkamp Instagrams a Grown-Up Newt
As the world observes Alien Day — the 24-hour celebration of all things Xenomorph in accordance with the aliens’ home planet, LV-426 — director Neill Blomkamp has chimed in to reminded the galaxy that he’s still attached to direct a fifth Alien feature. That project was officially put on hold last year as Ridley Scott moved forward on continuing the franchise’s prequel series with Alien: Covenant, the follow-up to 2012’s Prometheus. But Blomkamp is still committing his ideas to paper, as evidenced by a sketch that he recently posted on his Instagram page.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BEpY8FxqhOG/?taken-by=neillblomkamp
The picture depicts a grown-up, suited-up Newt, the last (and littlest) survivor of a human colony who made the mistake of trying to populate the alien-infested LV-426 in James Cameron’s action classic, Aliens. Thanks to the timely intervention of Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and her crack squad of space Marines, Newt (Carrie Henn) made it off-planet, only to perish in the opening sequence of David Fincher’s 1992 sequel Alien 3.
So how exactly is Newt alive and well in Blomkamp’s Alien 5 concept art? Well, he’s keeping that answer close to the vest for now. In early interviews, the South African director behind District 9 and Chappie suggested that he’d be ignoring the events of Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection for his own story. But then he backtracked somewhat, insisting that he’s not trying to “undo” the latter two sequels, but merely wants to make a movie that’s more “connected” to the original films. Bringing a grown-up Newt back to life certainly reinforces that connection.
