If you’re a fan of theAlienfranchise, this is probably going to be a great year for you. AfterPrometheusbrought directorRidley Scottback to the series he created, he is now making a proper prequel withAlien: Covenant. As exciting as that is, there is still a lot of hope among fans forDistrict 9directorNeill Blomkamp’s proposedAlien 5. Unfortunately, he has now made it fairly clear that the movie probably isn’t going to happen.
Neill Blomkamprecently took toTwitterin order to address a fan question aboutAlien 5, the movie he was going to make beforeRidley Scottdecided that he finally wanted to make hisPrometheussequel, which we now know asAlien: Covenant. The fan in question asked, “what are the chances of the alien project happening?“Neill Blomkampsimply and disappointingly responded with “slim.”
For those who may not know howNeill Blomkampgot involved in possibly making what he calls a direct sequel toAliens, which would essentially ignore the events ofAlien 3andAlien: Resurrection, it all started while he was working on his movieChappie. Back when he was promotingChappie, he randomly tweeted out some concept art for a sequel toAliensthat went viral in a big way and got fans of the franchise very excited. This got the attention of Fox, and that ultimately led to the movie getting the go-ahead.Blomkamphad a draft of the script completed and everything seemed in place, but then things fell apart whenRidley Scottstarted working onAlien: Covenant. The movie wasn’t officially canceled, but there has been zero progress made in quite some time. Now it seems like the time may have passed altogether.
Over the summer a 30th-anniversary panel was held forAliensat San Diego Comic-Con and at that time,Sigourney WeaverandMichael Biehnboth seemed optimistic thatAlien 5was going to happen at some point. And there have been reports thatCarrie Hennwould return as Newt.Sigourney Weaverhas talked quite a bit about the project since it was announced and seems very enthusiastic about doing it, but her enthusiasm is no match for the power ofRidley Scott. Fox made the deal to makeAlien 5before the release ofChappie, which didn’t do well critically and died at the box office. Around the same time,Ridley ScottreleasedThe Martian, which crushed at the box office and got a ton of awards recognition. He then also decided he finally wanted to makeAlien: Covenant. Being thatAlienis his franchise and that he had the hot hand, Fox seemingly decided that was the better way to go and didn’t want to step on his toes by lettingNeill Blomkampalso do hisAlienssequel.
This doesn’t necessarily mean thatAlien 5definitely won’t happen, but the movie will almost certainly have to wait untilRidley Scottis done with hisAlienmovies. He reportedly has at least one more movie that will come afterAlien: Covenantthat will round out a prequel series leading up to the events of the originalAlien. If that is, in fact, the case, we’ll probably have to wait a while, if it happens at all, forAlien 5. The good news?Alien: Covenantis set for release on July 22, 2025.
