Some fans of James Cameron’s Aliens consider Newt the worst part of the movie: Her high-pitched scream, laughable dialogue, it can be painful. If you are one of these people, I have some potentially bad news: Newt might be the star of Neill Blomkamp’s Aliens sequel
Talking to Icons of Fright, Aliens star Michael Biehn talked about the story Blomkamp was developing before the project got put on indefinite hiatus
They’re planning on bringing me and Newt back and at this point Newt will be around twenty-seven years old. I know that every actress in Hollywood is going to want to play this one, it’s really a passing of the torch between Sigourney and this younger actress who would play Newt. It would keep the franchise alive and the studios would make money, because that’s what the bottom line is now: money.
Personally, Newt doesn’t bother me. We totally understand why the character of Newt exists: She can give Ripley and the Marines information, she’s a rescuable character, and it helps showcase Ripley’s maternal instincts that she never got a chance to use.
Biehn also elaborated on what we’d all heard several months back: Blomkamp’s movie would pretend Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection never happened, and pick up the story of Aliens with Ripley, Hicks and Newt decades after escaping LV-426.
The basic idea is acting like Alien 3 and 4 never existed, so if you go on Neill Blomkamp’s site, everyone can see all of the artwork for that. I know Ridley Scott is doing his movie first and is going to be the executive producer on this one, so I’m really looking forward to that. I know that Ridley’s focus is on the second Prometheus and I’m sure that he and Fox both don’t want that and Neill’s movie to come out right next to each other, because they’re kind of two different worlds, with Aliens taking place thousands of years later, which is how they explained it all to me, but at the same time, they want to give them a similar feel. I know they’re putting the brakes on Neill’s movie just for a little while, but I really think that it would be embarrassing to Ridley and Fox and Sigourney if they just didn’t make the movie.
However, when (or if) this will ever happen is the big question. Fox is currently all-in with the Prometheus sequel Alien: Covenant, directed by Ridley Scott, and in the press release for that, they called it the second movie in a trilogy. Since those movies all take place before Alien and Aliens, Blomkamp’s film would likely have to come after the trilogy is complete, so as not to confuse film goers.
I think the Alien universe can certainly handle films in both of these timelines and, honestly, I’m a bit torn on which one I want to see more: Blomkamp’s retconned sequel or Scott’s continuing prequel. We just have to hope they’re better than the last several films in the franchise.
Image credits: Aliens/20th Century Fox
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