Director Neill Blomkamp is out promoting his horror film ‘Demonic” and he spoke with our very own Rodrigo Perez for The Playlist podcast. During that chat, we learned some interesting things about the fate of his never-made “Alien 5” that attempted to bring back Sigourney Weaver‘s Ellen Ripley. Along with the filmmaker’s desire to return to the world of his fantastically designed sci-fi actioner “Elysium.”
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“I would love to do more films in the world of ‘Elysium.’ I love the setup of that world. The world that it puts forward is very interesting to me.” We praised the film for its prescient look at the 1% and the haves and have not and posited that the world could easily go in that direction predicted by “Elysium.” “It’ll go in the direction,” he said of the billionaire class and financial inequities we see in the world today. “It’s already going in that direction.”
Asked if he was dystopian in his outlook of the world, he said yes and no. Essentially a long-term hope for humanity and a short-term belief that we’re in trouble. “I think there will be huge amounts of geo-political and geo-cultural changes that are unavoidable. Collapses and… some serious shit is coming.”
The director also briefly commented on his former IP projects like “Alien 5” and “RoboCop Returns” not coming together as they weren’t exactly in his control since they are studio-owned IPs and it makes that development process a bit more complicated than making original properties from scratch.
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“It’s a process of filmmaking…you just have to go into it with your eyes open and know that the ground can shift if it’s a piece of I.P. you don’t control. Yeah, I just take in stride,” Blomkamp said.
Asked point-blank if we could ever see his “Alien 5” Blomkamp gave a definitive negative. “No. They won’t [see it ever]. No. If you have Sigourney [Weaver] on-board, you’d think that would be enough, but I guess not.”
But, he hasn’t ruled out tackling other I.P. projects in the future. “Not those pieces of IP [Alien/RoboCop], but I’m certainly open to other stuff…if the right thing came along and seems ‘stable’ I would certainly look at it. I would be wary, but I’d be totally down to look at anything right now.”
Were there too many cooks involved with those previous projects?
“The ‘lots of cooks’ things is a different situation. ‘Halo‘ and ‘Alien‘ are more cases of, there’s no cooks, the rug gets pulled out [from under you], and that can happen with a corporation that wants to be protective or intelligent with what they want to do with their I.P. They want to profit from it and will have different points of view than people coming from a creative standpoint. They’re not always going to see eye-to-eye.”
Blomkamp alludes to Ridley Scott‘s skittishness about the project having a direct impact on things not working out, but either way he doesn’t sound bitter.
“At the end of the day even though Ridley Scott is producing it, he brought that to the world, so if he changes his mind or if there is a director on it he doesn’t want, whatever it may be, it’s his. I understand that, it makes logical sense to me.”
At the same time, Scott was prepping “Alen: Covenant” and conveniently once “Alien 5” was placed into hiatus, “Covenant” quickly moved into production. Scott had previously attempted his own version of “Alien 5” starring Weaver with the help of James Cameron only for the studio to move forward with “Alien vs. Predator” instead.
It’ll be interesting to see how Ridley Scott’s creative venture with Noah Hawley goes on their “Alien” series at FX and if he’ll ultimately be able to make that third prequel film he’s been trying to get going at 20th Century Studios.