Ridley Scott Is Holding Up Neill Blomkamp’s ‘Alien 5’ Because He Wants to Make ‘Prometheus 2’ First

The current state of the Alien franchise is a little confusing, to say the least. In one corner, you have Ridley Scott planning to make a sequel to his prequel, Prometheus. In the other corner, you have Neill Blomkamp, still plugging away at Alien 5, which may or may not ignore the third and fourth entries in the original series. In fact, the sheer amount of Alien stuff in the works seems to have clogged up the pipes. If a new report is to be believed, Blomkamp’s film is being put on the back burner until Scott can make Prometheus 2 a reality.

The news comes to us from Bloody Disgusting, who cite an anonymous source for their information (so take all of this with a few grains of salt). If this source is accurate, Blomkamp’s sequel will get made, but Scott himself won’t let it happen until he finishes his prequel sequel:

Alien 5 is still very much in the works, as Fox remains hot on the idea. Blomkamp continues to work on the script (only an outline existed previously) and refine the tale he is telling. Ridley Scott is still producing, but has insisted on Prometheus 2 being made first.

This can be read in a few ways. Those of us who search for hidden connections in everything have to wonder if Prometheus 2 will somehow shake up the Alien series in a big way. What if it has to be first?

Bloody Disgusting also reports that delaying Blomkamp’s film will allow Sigourney Weaver the necessary time to go film James Cameron’s Avatar sequels before returning to the role of Ellen Ripley for the fifth time. Interestingly, their inside source also claims that Alien 5 may not actually wipe Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection out of the series continuity, but provide no further explanation. So how is Michael Biehn’s Hicks still alive in that released concept art if the third film actually happened? Like we said at the top of this article, the Alien series is in a pretty serious state of flux right now. Let’s see where the pieces land.

Prometheus 2 is expected to begin filming next year for a 2017 release. Alien 5 will presumably shoot in 2017 for a 2018 release. Maybe. Who knows?