Lots of Alien-related things to update you on today. First, here's the first-ever image from Ridley Scott's Prometheus followup Alien: Covenant, released just in time for “Alien Day”:
Weyland-Yutani, for those not in the know, is the corrupt corporation that in the original films is hell-bent on bringing one of the titular xenomorphs back to Earth. In Prometheus, the “Weyland” part of the equation (Peter Weyland) was played by Guy Pearce in old age makeup; since the events of that film, it's clear that the “hostile takeover” of the Japanese cybernetics manufacturer Yutani described in Alien lore has since taken place.
Elsewhere, following an “Alien Day” screening of Aliens in New York last night Sigourney Weaver had some very interesting things to say about South African director Neill Blomkamp's (District 9, Elysium, Chappie) Alien 5, the development of which was put on hold to make room for Covenant. Based on the Q&A, those fans who felt betrayed by the events of Alien 3 — which killed off Aliens survivors Newt (Carrie Henn) and Hicks (Michael Biehn) in the opening sequence — and similarly antagonized by Alien: Resurrection should take heart, for Weaver claims Blomkamp's film will essentially ignore what happened in those last two films (both of which I personally happen to admire).
“When Neill Blomkamp started to talk to me about the sequel to this movie [Aliens], I thought, ‘Gosh, that would be so great to know that Ripley has a resting place, eventually,'” said Weaver (via Den of Geek). “And wouldn”t it be great to end the series on-not that the other two didn”t happen but they”re in a parallel universe. I love them all [but] the filmmaker has to be inspired by what he is inspired by. And what he grew up with, and I think wore the tapes out of, were Alien 1 and Alien 2 in South Africa.”
None of this should come as a surprise to those who have been paying attention to Blomkamp's Instagram feed over the last several months, where the director has been intermittently releasing concept art for the proposed sequel that features both Hicks and a grown-up Newt, the latter of which was posted just yesterday:
//platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js
Reviving both Hicks and Newt will inevitably remind many fans of the non-canonical Dark Horse comic book series Aliens, which saw both those characters (and later Ripley) continuing to fight for their survival against both the xenomorphs and Weyland-Yutani. It will be interesting to see if Blomkamp incorporates elements from those books into Alien 5's plot.