Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Alien Day has come and gone with all the shoe controversy and sweet-ass Mondo swag in its wake. Consider this a little bit of a round-up of the many little Alien franchise tidbits to shake free in the last day and a half.
First off, the real, tangible, news: Ridley Scott's Alien: Covenant released its first image, a patch from one of the crew of the Covenant, the ship at the center of this story. Check it out:
First thing to note, the obvious Ark of the Covenant imagery (which pre-dates Raiders of the Lost Ark, in case you missed Sunday school), which is interesting. There was also a brief summary released that gave us a reason why Noomi Rapace isn't coming back. The short short of it is that it's about a crew that stumbles across a planet whose sole inhabitant is Michael Fassbender's David (presumably not a floating head, but I won't rule that out because that would be awesome).
It's short and to the point, but I'm in.
The next thing to talk about is Neill Blomkamp's proposed Alien 5, which has lotsa fans' underwear in a twist because he wants to bring back Newt and Hicks who were killed off screen (in a studio mandated move, not a creative decision by David Fincher, by the way) in Alien3.
Blomkamp released a design of what his grown up Newt would look like:
They made her look a lot like Ripley, oddly enough, didn't they? I assume they'll be going after a Brie Larson or Emily Blunt or Jennifer Lawrence to fill those shoes if they make it, but the real interesting bit about Blomkamp's Alien came from Sigourney Weaver herself at one of the big Alien Day screenings of the first two films.
One of our readers, Uncle Jay, attended the NYC screening and Q&A and reported back that Weaver brought up Blomkamp's film before she was even asked about it and said that it is indeed still on and likely to film shortly after Ridley Scott finishes up Alien: Covenant.
She confirmed that Michael Biehn's involvement and said the chemistry between Ripley and Hicks will be explored further, even possibly becoming a romance.
The most interesting thing about that chat, though, was Weaver's insistence that Blomkamp's movie won't betray Alien3 and Alien: Resurrection. When pressed on it she said the worlds “parallel universe” which has me a tad worried, but fuck it. I'm one of the guys who hated the direction the series took after Aliens and if they want to reboot it and bring back Ripley, Newt and Hicks they don't have to ask me twice, but I know the third and fourth movies have their fans (Alien3 in particular).
All I know is doing these big franchise pictures and bringing back “legacy” cast-members is highly profitable right now, so I don't think Weaver was bullshitting when she said that Blomkamp's movie is on the docket in the near future.
It's an interesting time to be an Alien fan. So much up in the air right now, but I have a feeling some, if not all, of the new possible projects are going to be really cool. What about you?
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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