Neill Blomkamp Offers New 'Alien' Concept Art

The story of Neill Blomkamp's proposed Alien movie is a weird one, as some of the development of the film has unfolded in public thanks to the director's Instagram account and his use of concept art releases to build momentum for the potential sequel. Now Blomkamp has shared a piece of new Alien concept art, featuring Sigourney Weaver's Ripley and a scarred character obviously meant to be Michael Biehn's Hicks.

The director offered the image on Instagram:

Beyond that, what do we know about Alien?

The answer is: not much. There's that batch of concept art that kicked off the project, at least in the public eye, and we know that Sigourney Weaver is on board. During the promotion of Chappie, Blomkamp and Weaver both made clear that they wanted to make a movie that will really be connected to the first two films, by Ridley Scott and James Cameron. The concept art featuring the scarred Hicks, who was killed in the opening of Alien 3, is enough to make that clear.

And while Blomkamp has said a few things that suggest this movie will ignore the third and fourth Alien films, he did quickly walk back that statement, saying:

My favorites are the first two movies, so I want to make a film that's connected to Alien and Aliens. That's my goal. I'm not trying to undo Alien 3 or Alien: Resurrection, I just want it to be connected to Alien 1 and 2.

Regardless, Ripley is clearly the focus, as she has been in all the sequels to the original Alien. Also during the Chappie promo push, Blomkamp said,

...part of it was just inspired by speaking to her on set when we were filming 'Chappie,' and getting her thoughts on 'Alien' and what she thought of the movies that came after 'Aliens' and what she felt about Ripley and what was incomplete for her about Ripley. There was so much fuel in what she was telling me.

Beyond that, things are still pretty unclear when it comes to this movie. While the director has said it will be his next film, there's no release date set at this point.

In addition to Alien, Blomkamp is working as a producer on the film Leviathan.