Alien 5 Still Happening says Star Michael Biehn
The Alien franchise is currently in stasis – Ridley Scott is pressing ahead with Alien: Covenant, the follow up to Prometheus – but what of Neill Blomkamp's proposed sequel to Aliens, which would bring back Sigourney Weaver and Michael Biehn as Ripley and Hicks?
The official line is that it’s ‘kinda holding’ but, while Scott’s film takes precedence, that doesn’t mean that Alien 5 has bitten the dust. Potential star Michael Biehn has been talking to Icons of Fright about what progress, if any, has been made with the fifth instalment.
"I know Ridley Scott is doing his movie first," Biehn said, "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."
As a result, Fox is "putting the brakes on Neill's movie just for a little while," Biehn explains, before going into a little more detail about Alien 5's plot. He starts by reaffirming what we'd already heard - that it effectively ignores the events of Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection - and that it will instead pick things up around 20 years after the events of Aliens.
"They're planning on bringing me and Newt back," the actor continues, "and at this point Newt will be around 27 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."
So, as far as Biehn is concerned, the project is still going ahead. It’s just when it’ll go ahead – Scott has spoken of three different sequels to Prometheus – it could be a long wait until we see Alien 5.