For some fans of the Alien franchise, Prometheus didn’t turn out as great as we expected. That’s why seeing the art that District 9 director Neill Blomkamp posted on his Instagram page today makes frustrates us even more.
Blomkamp, whose new film Chappie opens in March, posted nine pieces of concept art for a his idea of a fifth Alien film, along with a model of the xenomorph head.
The concept art is particularly interesting, because it shows that Blomkamp wanted to bring back the Ripley character in some way, with Sigourney Weaver playing the role again. Even more surprising is that two images show Hicks, Bill Paxton’s character from Aliens, who was killed off at the beginning of Alien3.
One image of Ripley shows her wearing the Space Jockey helmet, which makes you wonder if he wanted to somehow make Ripley the Space Jockey. It appears to have a March 2014 date stamp on it. Another image shows a new kind of Facehugger.
iO9 reports that Blomkamp tweeted that Fox, the studio behind the Alien films, didn’t know that he was working on this somehow.
“Ps this has nothing to do with the studio. I just feel like I might do something else instead. In which case why not show some work,” he wrote. “They didn't really even know I was working on it ha.”
It’s worth noting that neither the Instagram page nor the Twitter account are verified. On top of that, it does seem a bit odd that Blomkamp would be considered by Fox to make an Alien movie. While his sci-fi pedigree proves that he could do it, he’s been working on his own films non-stop, with Chappie quickly following 2013’s Elysium. Considering he's known to be a fan of the franchise, though, it's not surprising that he'd try to make some effort to add to it.
images via Instagram from Neill Blomkamp