Neill Blomkamp-Directed ‘Alien’ Film “Holding” In Favor Of ‘Prometheus 2’

It’s not entirely a shock, but plans for a Neill Blomkamp-directed film in the Alien franchise have been put on hold and possibly set aside entirely, and the District 9 director is moving on to other projects. Blomkamp took to Twitter minutes ago to relay the news.

In February it was announced that Blomkamp would be directing a film to be set at some unspecified time after the events of the then-still-up-in-the-air Prometheus 2 story, and Alien director Ridley Scott was set to produce for 20th Century Fox. No story or script was ready at the time, but Blomkamp indicated on social media that it would be a proper installment of the Alien series.

A change of vision on Scott’s part might have had something to do with putting Blomkamp’s film on hold. As initially conceived, Prometheus 2 would have followed the further adventures of Noomi Rapace’s Elizabeth Shaw as she seeks to uncover more about the events of Prometheus. However, Scott eventually set those plans aside, revealing in a recent interview that Prometheus 2 is going to be more of a proper prequel to Aliens, saying that “it’s going to be Alien: Paradise Lost.” That concept isn’t the same, but it is a bit closer to where Blomkamp wanted to go. More information about the future direction of the franchise presumably will come later.

Either way, Bloomkamp’s Alien movie appears for all intents and purposes comatose for now, while Prometheus 2 is slated to go into production in early 2016.