Over the summer, it was hinted that Chappie and District 9 director Neill Blomkamp’s much-discussed project that would serve as a follow-up to Aliens could be delayed due to Ridley Scott’s plans for the Prometheus sequel. Now it looks like those rumors have been confirmed, with Blomkamp himself stating that the film is currently in a “holding” pattern while the Prometheus sequel — titled Alien: Paradise Lost — is being developed.
The update arrived via Twitter, with Blomkamp indicating that he plans to work on other projects while Alien: Paradise Lost moves along the production cycle.
https://twitter.com/NeillBlomkamp/status/659897245353951236?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
“Alien is kinda holding/ pending prometheus 2,” wrote Blomkamp. “So I shall be working on other things … as much as I love the xeno- and Lt ripley.”
Rumors regarding a potential Aliens-related project for Blomkamp first began circulating back in January when the filmmaker posted some unused concept art he commissioned for a stalled project featuring Sigourney Weaver as franchise star Ellen Ripley and Michael Biehn as his popular Aliens character, Corporal Hicks. Blomkamp initially suggested that the art was from a project that never made it out of the development phase, but the buzz generated by the art was so strong that a month later it was announced that he would indeed get behind the camera for a film that would serve as a pseudo-sequel to Aliens set in the franchise’s continuity.
In August, however, it was rumored that Scott’s plans for the then-untitled Prometheus sequel had potentially derailed Blomkamp’s project, and the former would likely need to be finished — with work possibly beginning on sequels to that film — before Blomkamp’s Aliens movie could move forward.
And now that does indeed appear to be the case, although Blomkamp himself doesn’t seem to think the project has entered development limbo … yet.
Still, while Blomkamp’s project remains in a holding pattern, fans of the franchise can look forward to Alien: Paradise Lost hitting theaters in December 2017. That film is about to begin shooting, and is expected to feature the return of Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender as their Prometheus characters, scientist Elizabeth Shaw, and the android David. The film will likely bring the pair to the homeworld of the enigmatic “Engineers” — the race responsible for creating the deadly xenomorphs.
