You might remember way back at San Diego Comic-Con 2017 during the Aliens 30th Anniversary panel where both Sigourney Weaver and director James Cameron talked up Neill Blomkamp’s script for Alien 5, Cameron going as so far as to call “gangbusters”.
During the red carpet premiere for Alita: Battle Angel, IGN (via AVPGalaxy) asked Jim if Terminator was in the right hands with Tim Miller and if he would be willing to give Neill Blomkamp a call about Alien 5, his reply to the former was “I’m working on that, yeah”. We don’t really know how serious he was but I’m sure we’ll be getting plenty of interviews with Cameron commenting on the future of the Alien franchise.
Disney’s Bob Iger did mention during the earnings call this week that they were fine with 20th Century Fox putting out mature content and that this could be the first sign that they possibly fine with future Alien and Predator films being R-rated, not unlike Deadpool (which they seem fine with too). There is a strong possibility that with how strong the merchandising is with Alien that Disney may end up going back to Blomkamp with the help of James Cameron to get Alien 5 made, as Sigourney Weaver has said she’s still open to reprising the Ellen Ripley role.
Alien 5 isn’t too dissimilar to the crux of Tim Miller/James Cameron’s upcoming Terminator film, that would have ignored films that took place after the first sequel. Neill Blomkamp considered his film would the direct sequel to Aliens, having planned on bringing back characters such as Hicks and an adult Newt.
The bigger question is, will James Cameron getting involved be enough to lure Blomkamp back to the table after the film was pulled during pre-production stages last time?
It should be noted that screenwriter Justin Rhodes who is one of the writers on their upcoming Terminator movie is actually currently working with Neill on the script for RoboCop Returns. So there is already a creative connection of sorts between Blomkamp and James Cameron. When that could happen is unknown as Weaver is expected to finish up Avatar 4 and Avatar 5 before Alien 5, Neill is also busy at the moment and we’ll see if Greenland (starring Chris Evans) or RoboCop Returns ends up his next movie.
SOURCE: IGN
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