Alien 5 Might Be Delayed To Make Way For Prometheus 2

Bloody Disgusting reports that Neill Blomkamp's Alien 5 might be delayed until production on Ridley Scott's Prometheus 2 climaxes sometime next year. The cameras will reportedly roll on Prometheus 2 in early 2016, but Scott is insisting his movie be complete before Blomkamp's gets properly underway. Scott's gotten pretty proficient at turning his movies around quickly (factoring in this year's The Martian, he's delivered 4 big pictures in the past 5 years), but this development will still likely set the release of Alien 5 back by a year. Technically Prometheus 2 and Alien 5 exist under the same mythological banner, but they'll be disparate stories. Prometheus 2 is the follow-up to 2012's soggy pseudo-prequel Prometheus, whilst Alien 5 is set to reacquaint viewers with Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley (and Michael Biehn's Hicks too) in a more direct continuation of the storied saga. Blomkamp scored the Alien gig back in February after unveiling some magnificent concept art, enough for Fox to overlook the critical and commercial failure of his latest feature Chappie.

This means we're unlikely to see Alien 5 until 2018 now. Whilst I'd much rather get back to brass tacks and jump headfirst into the old-school Alien-verse, a delay now might not be detrimental to the finished product. Blomkamp's a terrific visualist and a legitimately ambitious film-maker, but his last two efforts, 2013's Elysium and the aforementioned Chappie, both suffered from a serious case of the storytelling shakes. By turns derivative and improbably structured, both features failed to land with the impact of Blomkamp's socially conscious debut District 9. Obviously the Alien brand demands something erring closer to the film-maker's better work, so extra time for him to develop the script and justify the sequel are probably in everybody's best interest. As for Prometheus 2, I'm nonplussed. Hopefully this time Scott can deliver an end-product with some potency. The 2012 original had its share of memorable moments, but they were stitched together in an incredibly haphazard fashion. We'll find out if improvements have been made sometime in 2017.