Though Neill Blomkamp hasn’t released a movie in the last two years the director is still very busy working on starting his own movie studio, Oats Studios, which will focus on releasing independently short films online. He had also been hard at work trying to get ALIEN 5 off the ground – a project he just said will most likely never see the light of day.
While talking to The Verge about Oats, he was asked if he thinks the ALIEN sequel is dead in the water, especially with Ridley Scott wanting to do more films after COVENANT:
I think it's totally dead, yes. That would be an accurate assumption at this point. It’s sad. I spent a long time working on that, and I feel like it was really pretty awesome. But politically, the way it’s gone now, and the way that it all is — it’s just not going to live.
Blomkamp has come to this conclusion once it became apparent that Scott was still very much invested in the sci-fi franchise, and had his own intentions as to how it should be approached:
Ridley [Scott] was one of my idols growing up. He's so talented and he's made this film that really set me off in a direction. I want to just be as respectful and not go stamping around in this world that he created. I think that if the circumstances were different, and I didn't feel like I was getting too close to something that he obviously feels a massive personal connection to, that things that may have played out differently. But I did want to be as respectful as possible.
Scott spoke about the planned sequel, which would’ve brought Sigourney Weaver back into the fold, saying there wasn’t even a script for the movie, and that it was nothing more than an idea they were hearing out before he decided to make COVENANT.
It’s a shame we won’t get to see more films relating to Weaver’s Ripley character, and I have a feeling something like ALIEN 5 could get people back into the franchise, especially now that COVENANT is failing to live up to expectations at the box office. But it appears studio politics got in the way, and Blomkamp seems perfectly happy doing the work he is now. When you can't play with xenomorphs, just create your own lizard beasts.
ALIEN: COVENANT is still in theaters now.