What the heck was Neill Blomkamp working on?
In several interviews he gave in 2013, Blomkamp said that he would love to do an “Alien” film, but I don't remember ever hearing any official news that he had been hired to do any development towards that goal. I remember him saying that “Aliens” was his favorite film of all time at a special “Elysium” event as well, so it's something that is in his blood.
Yesterday, though, Blomkamp decided to start the New Year off with a blast. He posted eight images to his Instagram account that suggest that he was indeed developing an “Alien” movie. His captions also suggest that the movie is now dead. From his comments on Twitter, it sounds like he never had the gig officially, but instead was working on this material as a thing he wanted to pitch to the studio at some point, and for whatever reason, his enthusiasm has now cooled and he seems to be off to other projects.
Whatever the case, it's clear that Blomkamp wanted Sigourney Weaver to once again step up and play Ellen Ripley, or some form of the character. There's one image here where she appears to be wearing space jockey armor, and I wonder if this was something that in some way incorporated the ideas introduced in “Prometheus” or if this completely ignored that film and simply used the other “Alien” films as source material.
Unless Blomkamp explains the context for these images or Fox decides they have to hire him because they see this stuff and can't live without this film. Check out all eight of the images embedded below, and then mourn what might have been in our comments section. And I especially like the Master Chief that's included in the final photo of Blomkamp's workspace.
Will we ever see another film set in this universe? Count on it. There's no way Fox leaves something as profitable as this on the shelf, no matter what wrong turns they've made with it previously.