Neill Blomkamp’s New ‘Alien’ Movie Will Have Sigourney Weaver, Obviously

Just a couple of months after he released some fascinating concept art for a new Alien movie, it’s been confirmed that District 9 and Chappie director Neill Blomkamp is indeed working on that new Alien movie for Fox. His artwork was clearly inspired by original Alien franchise star Sigourney Weaver, whom we all assumed would definitely star in Blomkamp’s new project. And hey, guess what? She totally is.

In news that will surprise no one, Blomkamp confirmed that Weaver will definitely be appearing in his new Alien film. During an interview with EW to promote his latest sci-fi flick, Blomkamp revealed that his Alien idea came about while working with Weaver on Chappie (of course), inspiring him to develop this concept:

Over the years, I came up with a story for a film in that universe that I wanted to make. And then when I talked to her about her experience making those films and what she thought about Ripley and everything else, it informed and changed the film I wanted to make into something different. It just sort of stuck with me. A year later, when post-production was winding down on Chappie, I started fleshing out the idea for a film that would contain Sigourney. Fox never knew. I just worked on it when I could. Before I knew it, I had this really awesome film with a lot of artwork and a lot of backstory. And then I didn’t know whether I was going to make it or not. So I just kind of sat on it for a while.

The concept art we’ve seen from Blomkamp has some shots of Weaver’s Ripley—in one, she’s with Michael Biehn’s Hicks, who is slightly deformed, and in another she’s wearing an incredibly boss Xenomorph helmet.

Blomkamp is highly skilled at developing visual concepts and translating them beautifully to the screen. If only his screenplays were as strong as his visual work. While we’re definitely intrigued by Blomkamp’s Alien concept, there’s still some concern over just how well he can pull this thing off.