Neill Blomkamp's Alien 5 has taken the internet by storm (much more than his recent release Chappie). After Instagramming some concept art back in January, this vague idea's got traction, with the film now greenlit by 20th Century Fox and both Sigourney Weaver and Michael Biehn returning (despite the notable handicap of being dead). Why you should probably dial that excitement back for now has already been covered, but the main thing most people are missing is that this just another entry in a oddly long line of attempts to keep Alien culturally relevant. For while Alien 5 may have been initially born out of Blomkamp's ideas, it's being bank-rolled by a studio who would have thrown money at just about any concept that popped up and allowed them to make more films about the LVs. Consider this: the longest gap between two consecutive Alien films was the seven years it took to make Aliens after the success of Alien. Ever since, there's been a new spin on the franchise (Sequel! Clone! Versus! Whatever Prometheus was!) every few years meaning you're never quite safe from a xenomorph. They've tried to make the franchise continue to work and while there's been some successes (Prometheus worked when you stop thinking of it as a straight prequel) and minor box office hits, the series has never felt more than a throwback to a different era. It all leads back to the fact Aliens was a massive hit. Since then, Fox has been desperate to recapture that, without realising how unique the genre-bending was in the first place.
