Neill Blomkamp To Make An Alien Movie?

Arguably the most beautiful movies come from the greatest visionary directors; directors able to imagine, realise and capture creatures, societies, worlds and realms beyond our comprehension. Some directors like David Fincher, Christopher Nolan and Stanley Kubrick can do this subtly with the unique framing of a shot or the misuse of color and/or lighting to unsettle the eye. But it is the imaginations of Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and James Cameron that have pushed the boundaries of filming and visual effects technology, to help their fellow film-makers realise their darkest dreams or their most beautiful nightmares onto the big screen.

Such visionaries are always dreaming up new, fantastical imagery; and one such visionary is South African-Canadian animator, writer, producer and director Neill Blomkamp. The director of District 9, Elysium and the forthcoming Chappie is well known for his creative and visual style, having already worked on the proof-of-concept “Landfall” footage for a movie based upon the Halo video game franchise. Blomkamp's imaginings again made the news earlier this year with the release of pictures he had worked on for an untitled Alien project, but very little additional information accompanied those spectacular images, leaving the fans to rabidly speculate as to whether or not Blomkamp was to join the ranks of Sir Ridley Scott, James Cameron and David Fincher with a new instalment in the Prometheus-Alien franchise.

Turns out that Blomkamp created these fantastical images of his own volition, that 20^th Century Fox would love to press ahead with his ideas and that the greatest obstacle to realising his Alien sequel is not casting, or scheduling, or budget, it is actually Blomkamp itself as the director explained in a recent interview with Uproxx...

Uproxx: Where did this Alien concept art you posted come from?

NB: "Basically, what happened was, when Chappie got heavily into post-production, I could take my foot off the gas a bit. I was thinking about what I wanted to do next and I’ve been wanting to make an Alien film for like years and years."

Uproxx: But you’ve never really said that before.

NB: "No."

Uproxx: People have heard you say that you don’t want to make an existing franchise type movie after what happened with Halo, before District 9.

NB: "That’s still true, by the way."

Uproxx: So that’s why it’s surprising that you want to do Alien.

NB: "Speaking to Sigourney Weaver, when we were doing Chappie, she set off a bunch of thoughts in my head — I had come up with an idea that didn’t have Sigourney, it was a different idea. But I spent all of the shooting time with her, it was like, holy shit, that could actually be really interesting. When I came back to Vancouver, I had an entire year to work on Chappie. And when I wasn’t needed in the edit, I could think about Alien. So, I basically developed an entire movie and I did all of this artwork as well."

Uproxx: Is this an abnormal way to go about this?

NB: "It’s totally abnormal. But it’s for the reason that you bring up, if it’s going to happen, it has to be on my terms. So, I came up with it and I’m bringing this to you. It’s not like, “Would you like to do Spider-Man 36?” I still love it, I love the idea of the movie and I produced way more art than I put out."

Uproxx: The art was very specific, it looked like a complete story. Ripley is wearing a space jockey helmet.

NB: "It was a whole story. Then I just wasn’t sure if I was going to do another film, like, at all."

Uproxx: Why?

NB: "Sometimes Hollywood just sort of gets to me. I love movies, but Hollywood itself is a difficult animal to negotiate. So, then I was like, if I don’t do any, I should put some of this artwork out and that’s exactly what happened."

Uproxx: Is that you giving up on possibly doing an Alien movie?

NB: "It’s not really giving up on the idea."

Uproxx: People on the Internet responded really well to that artwork.

NB: "There’s a high possibility, a high degree of chance that it happens that I go back and try to get Alien made."

Uproxx: In case it never happens, why is Ripley wearing a space jockey helmet?

NB: "I can’t tell you! It might happen! It’s cool though; it’s really cool … I’ll decide soon."

Uproxx: Someone at Fox should listen to you about this.

NB: "That’s not the problem, actually."

Uproxx: What’s the problem?

NB: "Me. I’m the problem. Fox, they would make it. Like, tomorrow. They would make it."

Uproxx: So if you called right now and said, “OK, done.”

NB: "Yes. Then it would happen."

Uproxx: Would it be your vision, or do they have their own ideas?

NB: "No, I think it would work out."

Uproxx: Then just do it.

NB: "I know, I just have to mentally agree with that."

Uproxx: Then what’s the problem here? I assumed there were obstacles, like maybe Ridley Scott wasn’t on board.

NB: "No, no, it’s not politics."