MOVIE NEWS – “It’s possible he saw it and thought, ‘This guy can’t make an Alien 5…'”

Before shooting District 10, Neill Blomkamp filmed a low-budget horror movie, Demonic, and he spoke to The Guardian about his top and bottom stories. He explains that he is still proud of Chappie, which made only $100 million worldwide, including $31.5 million in the United States, in 2015, even though it cost about $50 million, not including its advertising. Two years earlier, Elysium earned 286 million greenbacks worldwide, and in 2009, District 9 brought in 210 million, for only 30 million in the official budget.

When you take risks,” says the over-African filmmaker, “you have to be ready for the backlash, because you won’t always succeed. That’s exactly what happened with this film. It doesn’t change my opinion of it and I understand the audience, I see what the problems are. When you succeed, in your opinion, but the audience turns its back on you, then you ask yourself a lot of questions, you wonder why you make films. It leaves you confused.” He then details that Chappie was clearly “not for Ridley Scott”, who had offered to shoot an Alien sequel in February 2015, before retracting in October, shortly after the release of his robot film. “It’s possible he saw it and thought, ‘This guy can’t do an Alien, so we’re going to go ahead without him,'” laments Blomkamp, who says he never got a clear explanation from the first film’s director. I feel bad for Sigourney (Weaver, the saga’s lead actress, who should have returned in her Alien 5, editor’s note), because she had really immersed herself in this project. I also feel bad for the audience, for all the people who loved Aliens (the second film directed by James Cameron, on which his aborted film was based). We had the opportunity to make one more film with Sigourney that I think would have fit with what the fans want, and what I’m looking for in an Alien film.”

Neill Blomkamp then adds that he’s done with films based on big franchises unless he falls in love with a script. Because Alien 5 is not the only project, he worked on for many months before seeing the studio (in this case 20th Century Fox) abandon it. He was also attached to the adaptation of the Halo games, developed for the cinema for a time by Universal and Fox, and to a new Robocop, finally made without him at Columbia: “It’s not all black and white, if ever I’m offered something incredible that goes well, I won’t say no… but well, after Alien and Halo, I wouldn’t be very wise to go back to the drawing board (on existing properties).
Halo is finally being developed into a series at Paramount. Ridley Scott has taken over the helm of Alien for the prequels Prometheus and Covenant before he too declines his universe into a TV series, which is being created by Noah Hawley (Legion, Fargo…). Neill Blomkamp is not involved in either project.

Source: Movieweb