Neill Blomkamp’s Alien 5 aka Red Harvest was once an elevator pitch made to Sigourney Weaver on the set of Chappie alongside a wave of concept art the filmmaker had commissioned on his own that materialized into an actual development deal with 20th Century Fox to make the sci-fi film.
Blomkamp’s idea was to ignore Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection treating Alien 5 as a direct sequel to Aliens, allowing them to have characters such as Michael Biehn’s Hicks and an adult version of Newt (the two characters spotted in concept artwork). If you missed David Fincher’s Alien 3 that movie opened by killing-off both Hicks and Newt something that frustrated fans and Aliens director James Cameron.
James Cameron famously called the Alien 5 script “gangbusters” (Cameron seemingly borrowed Alien 5’s concept for Terminator: Dark Fate) but the project ultimately didn’t get into the production phase as the studio pivoted to making Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant instead. Alien 5 would eventually be trust into limbo with Blomkamp exiting to pursue multiple other projects and Disney hasn’t suggested they plan on resurrecting it anytime soon.
However, a new batch of Alien 5 concept from artist Geoffory Thoorens’ Art Station page has been spotted by AVP Galaxy and it features a new android characters named Jax (fist image seen below with Ellen Ripley) and Killson, the latter looks a lot like Wolverine actor Hugh Jackman (second image seen below). I’m sort of curious if Neill Blomkamp wanted to have Jackman play one of the androids, the Australian actor was the face of 20th Century Fox’s popular X-Men franchise at the time and had recently worked with Blomkamp on Chappie that also co-starred Weaver.
UPDATE: Geoffroy’s website includes this stunning key frame image from an action sequence that features an alien queen and another type of xenomorph (Alien 5 was going to feature multiple hybrid xenomorphs). The film would have seen the evil corporation Weyland-Yutani getting their hands on one of the derelict ships filled with xenomorph eggs and finally experimenting on the dangerous alien species for their weapons division, something they’ve been trying to do since the original Ridley Scott film.
The Alien franchise is in odd place as a new television series set on Earth is in the works from Noah Hawley (Fargo, Legion) and Ridley Scott. There has been chatter from Ridley that he’s developing another film as well, but those plans have yet to be officially announced by the studio.
SOURCE: GEOFFROY THOORENS
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