Sci-Fi Storm

So, that apparently confirmed Neill Blomkamp Alien sequel? It may not be so advanced in production as we thought – and it may never happen.

In an interview for French site Allocine (Google Translate in English), original Alien director and more recent franchise prequels Prometheus and Alien: Covenant director Ridley Scott said that “There was never a a scenario,” apparently referring to reports of a completed script, but “only an idea that evolved into a pitch of ten pages.” Scott was involved as a producer, but Fox decided not to proceed with it, since Scott was already involved in the prequels.

Blomkamp wanted to insert his movie as a specific sequel to Aliens, the second film of the franchise, somehow nullifying both Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection. And he had star Sigourney Weaver on board as well. But Blomkamp tweeted a reply to a fan asking about the likelyhood of the project moving forward, where he only said one word – “Slim”.

@jamesportella slim

— NΞill Blomkamp (@NeillBlomkamp) January 21, 2017

The colony ship Covenant, on its way to a distant planet to start a new human settlement carrying a crew of couples and an android named Walter (who looks remarkably like the android David in Prometheus), discover what they think is an idyllic paradise but instead turns out to be a dark and dangerous world.

In this prologue, the crew of the Covenant enjoy a little free time before they enter their long hypersleep on the way to their destination.

Alien: Covenant stars Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, Demián Bichir, Carmen Ejogo, Amy Seimetz, Jussie Smollett, Callie Hernandez, Nathaniel Dean, Alexander England, amd Benjamin Rigby

According to multiple source, British actor Sir John Hurt has passed away, having turned 77 earlier this week.

Hurt was one of those actors who simply showed up everywhere, from iconic roles such as the eponymous The Elephant Man (for which he received an Oscar nomination), to smaller but memorable ones such as Kane, the first victim in Alien (and self-parodied in Spaceballs), or even random roles such as an appearance in the short Masters of Science Fiction anthology series. I’ve seen him in so many things over the years, and I can picture him in each one – even if I didn’t realize it was him, such as his role of eccentric billionaire S.R. Hayden in Contact. He received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination and won the Golden Globe for his role of Max in Midnight Express. He had a way of making the smallest roles stand out for me.

More recently, Doctor Who fans would know him as the one the Doctor wouldn’t talk about, a.k.a. the “War Doctor”, who was responsible for what happened to the Time Lords and the Daleks at the end of the time war. And before that, he was Ollivander in several of the Harry Potter movies. And his distinctive gravelly voice was used in many other productions, including The Black Cauldron, Watership Down, The Tigger Movie, the Dragon in the BBC Merlin series, and the animated The Lord of the Rings.

Following up on last week’s story, during an interview with Sky Movies about the upcoming Chappie, both director Neil Blomkamp and actress Sigourney Weaver of course had to talk about Blomkamp’s planned Alien sequel – and it appears that he wants it to be a direct sequel of Aliens – basically inserting it as third in chronological order. See an excerpt of the entire interview below:

Of course, there is a slight problem…there was already a direct sequel in Alien 3, which might have to be explained away, and the followup Alien Resurrection, set a couple hundred years later. Perhaps we will learn that you can, in fact, dream in hypersleep, and Alien 3 was just a nightmware…and anything that can erase Alien Resurrection from reality is fine with me as well. 🙂

Wonder who the Weyland of Weland-Yutani Corporation (i.e. “the Company”) was in the Alien franchise? Now we have a bit of an answer – Peter Weyland a man who wants to “change the world”, speaking at the TED conference – in 2023. See the video below, and head on over to Weyland Industries, the company that in the future will merge with Yutani Corp…Prometheus will be release on June 8th, 2012.
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Another DVD release this Tuesday is Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, the latest in the merged franchises, picking up where Alien vs. Predator left off. This bloody slugfest will be out in two versions – the theatrical version and an unrated version (with some additional extras), plus the Blu-Ray version will have both. If you don’t have some of the other movies in either franchise, check our Sci-Fi Movies store for some different packages. Read More for a review of AVP-R.

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