Neill Blomkamp’s ‘Alien’ Will Pretend ‘Alien 3’ and ‘Alien: Resurrection’ Never Happened

Neill Blomkamp is currently out on the press trail for his upcoming sci-fi movie Chappie. But mostly he’s stumping for his initially theoretical, now-official Alien sequel, because that’s pretty much all he’s talking about. It’s definitely his next project, and it will definitely star Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley, who has done battle with H.R. Giger’s drippy xenomorphs in four previous Alien films.

Ah, but not so fast! According to Blomkamp there’s only two previous Aliens, or at least just two that matter for his story. He told IGN that he plans to ignore the entire existence of Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection. His exact quote:

I want this film to feel like it's literally the genetic sibling of Aliens. So it’s Alien, Aliens, and then this movie.

Neither 3 or Resurrection were particularly well-received at the box office or by fans of the series; Alien 3 killed off several major characters from James Cameron’s Aliens before its main story ever got started, and Alien: Resurrection followed a super-powered clone of the original Ripley. So there’s a certain amount of logic to Blomkamp’s plan. Few people like those movies, and a lot of average moviegoers have probably never even seen them. So why not just ignore them?

The reason, it would seem to me, is that Bryan Singer tried a similar trick with his Superman Returns and it didn’t work. Singer made a very direct sequel to Superman II while discarding all of the events of Superman III and IV; the result was so slavishly devoted to an old movie it felt like high-end fan-fiction. Blomkamp’s task is to make a new Alien movie that pays homage to the old ones without being tied down by them.

Blomkamp went on to say that he hopes to return Alien to its roots as a stripped down haunted-house-in-space-style horror movie. “It’s a Freudian nightmare. That element to me is what is so appealing,” he told IGN. “To try to put the audience on the edge of their seat, in a traditional ‘monster stalking you in a dark corridor way.’” If he pulls it off, it will be an awesome film and a new start for the series. If he doesn’t, the next director will just ignore his movie too.