Alien 5

Ridley Scott is heading into production on the newly-titled Alien: Paradise Lost early next year, which has reportedly pushed Neill Blomkamp’s separate Alien movie back just a bit to make room for the Prometheus sequel. Scott hasn’t been shy in discussing plans for the projects — particularly his own — and the director is at it again, teasing more plot details for Alien: Paradise Lost, as well as a potential release date for Blomkamp’s film.

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.

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.