Chappie director’s Alien sequel will be set after Aliens and ignore the previous sequels

Just a week ago, Chappie and District 9 director Neill Blomkamp confirmed that he was given the go-ahead to make a sequel to Aliens after posting some concept art he commissioned as part of an earlier project that initially stalled out. Now, we have a few more details about Blomkamp’s upcoming Aliens gig — and it’s likely to cause quite a bit of debate among both casual and die-hard fans of the franchise.

While promoting his new movie about an intelligent android, Chappie, both Blomkamp and Alien franchise star Sigourney Weaver (who has a featured role in Chappie) fielded more than a few questions about their plans for the project that would bring Weaver’s tough-as-nails Ellen Ripley back into the fight against the vicious Xenomorphs. Speaking with Sky Movies (via ComingSoon), Weaver said the upcoming film will give Ellen Ripley a “proper ending.”

Given that Ridley Scott’s 1979 film Alien was followed by James Cameron’s Aliens in 1986, then David Fincher’s Alien 3 in 1992 (in which — Spoiler Alert — Ripley dies), and Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Alien Resurrection in 1997 (in which — Spoiler Alert — Ripley comes back as a clone), there’s naturally been some discussion as to where Blomkamp’s film will fit into the continuity of the franchise. According to Blomkamp, the new film could very well kick-start a new continuity that ignores the third and fourth films.

“I want this film to feel like it is literally the genetic sibling of Alien,” explained the director. “So it’s Alien, Aliens, and then this movie.”

The notion that Blomkamp’s film would pick up after Aliens and rewrite the continuity of the series appears to be supported by the concept art the filmmaker posted, which depicts Weaver and Michael Biehn’s character from Aliens, Corporal Hicks. The surviving characters from that film — with the exception of Ripley — never made it into Alien 3, so any project that brings back Biehn’s character would essentially overwrite Fincher’s maligned 1992 film, which was profitable, but was also a notoriously troubled production that was critically panned.

Of course, there’s also the question of how to reconnect Weaver with a character she played almost three decades ago — although that hasn’t stopped Arnold Schwarzenegger from reprising his role from 1984’s The Terminator countless times over the years, so anything is possible.

For now, Chappie hits theaters March 6.