Director Neill Blomkamp opens up about how the cancellation of his potential Alien sequel that would have seen the return of Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley left him feeling. At the time of Blomkamp's early movie development, the Alien franchise was amid its return to the big screen after 15 years following the release of 2012's Ridley Scott-helmed prequel, Prometheus. Despite anticipation surrounding the movie following its announcement and subsequent teases, Blomkamp's sequel was scrapped after 20th Century Fox decided not to move forward once the director pitched initial ideas.
With Blomkamp's Gran Turismo film adaptation set to hit theaters in August, the director reflected on his career throughout the 2010s with Empire magazine, touching upon several scrapped projects, including his abandoned Alien sequel. Originally intended to be the fifth entry in the franchise and set to see Weaver's Ripley return as the lead, the tentatively titled Alien: Xeno was cancelled alongside two sequels to his 2015 sci-fi film Chappie. While the string of cancellations hit the director hard, Blomkamp took the opportunity to reevaluate his career goals, instead choosing to found Oats Studio to allow him to develop his own ideas. Check out Blomkamp's full recollection below:
"The stuff that's hit me the hardest in my own career are the projects that didn't get made - Alien, predominantly."
[He could have kept working within the US film system] "... if I was more of a McDonald's, Burger King-type studio-lackey director that makes one film every year or every 1.5 years... Naturally, I'm an artist who doesn't play the Hollywood game. When I left, I thought about things and came back with a different point of view about how I'm going to approach Hollywood."
How Alien: Xeno Would Have Altered The Franchise's Trajectory
Though Alien: Xeno was cut short early in its development, Alien fans did receive a significant amount of insight into how Blomkamp's movie would have altered the series. Concept art of Alien: Xeno would have not only seen Ripley return but also the return of Michael Biehn's Hicks and an older Newt, presumably retconning their off-screen deaths in Alien 3 and diverging the franchise's narrative into a new continuity. Even with old favorite characters returned, the concept art also featured new types of Xenomorphs, a jungle setting, new mercenary group factions, and deadly new androids.
While Blomkamp's sequel was cancelled, the franchise continued with the second of Ridley Scott's planned prequels, Alien: Covenant. However, the poor box office performance of Scott's sequel saw the franchise go dormant for numerous years under Fox, and Scott's plans for the series were left unfinished. After Disney acquired 20th Century Fox, it was confirmed many new entries into the Alien franchise were in development, including a Fede Álvarez-helmed film and TV series set to air on FX by Noah Hawley.
For many longtime Alien fans, Blomkamp's scrapped Alien: Xeno will always remain a missed opportunity. Not only did the franchise miss out on featuring the celebrated sci-fi director's vision, but Ripley's return would have fit perfectly alongside the recent returns of other horror icons in movies, including 2018's Halloween and 2022's Scream. While Blomkamp and viewers may wonder what might have been, the experience helped inform the director how he felt he should shape his career going forward.
Source: Empire Magazine
