10 Horror Movies Probably Made Out Of Spite
2. Alien: Covenant
For fans of the Alien franchise, one thing that has forever irked is how Newt and Hicks were quietly killed off-screen during the opening minutes of the much-maligned Alien 3. So, when District 9 director Neill Blomkamp started loose work on a new Alien film that would bring these characters back and ignore Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection, that was something that immediately caught the attention.
Blomkamp spent two years structuring what his 'Alien 5' would look like, and some stunning pieces of concept art even made their way online. Unfortunately, this took place in the aftermath of Ridley Scott's Prometheus being released.
Scott had already talked up a sequel to Prometheus, with the plan being to further explore the Engineers by following the journey of Noomi Rapace's Elizabeth Shaw. Once news of Blomkamp's Alien picture became public, Scott and 20th Century Fox had a major change of plan for their Prometheus follow-up.
Rather than what we were promised, Prometheus: Paradise Lost became Alien: Covenant. Way more in tune with the style and palette of the first two Alien movies, this became an entirely different film, to the point that poor Noomi Rapace is reduced to a blink-and-you'll-miss-her role in the theatrical cut of Covenant.
As for Neill Blomkamp's Alien 5, that has since been shelved, with Fox seemingly choosing to keep Ridley Scott sweet rather than bring back Ripley, Newt and Hicks.