Illustration commissioner and Chappie director Neill Blomkamp’s Alien movie still doesn’t have a cast attached, or any plot details to deploy, but Blomkamp does have a new piece of concept art to pass around, showing off some things that would certainly be cool if they actually ended up happening. The piece in question is fairly similar to now-deleted art that the director posted to his Instagram account six months ago, and shows two characters who appear to be Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley and Michael Biehn’s Corporal Hicks, facing down some kind of armored soldier, and captioned “#alien going very well. Love this project.”
Of course, given that Blomkamp basically willed his attachment to a new Alien movie into existence through a combination of nice drawings, a lot of hope, and the lingering goodwill from his debut feature, District 9, it’s possible that he’s once again employing The Secret to Instagram vision-board his desires into reality. Certainly, neither of the actors lovingly depicted in the painting have been officially announced as signing on for the project so far, despite a Biehn-related hoax earlier this year, and Weaver’s words of support for her Chappie director. (Also, Hicks totally died at the start of Alien 3, but it’s not like the franchise hasn’t worked around those kinds of problems before.) But it’ll be hard to actually know anything until Fox makes some official casting announcements, or the director shows off some footage of actual, non-portraiture actors performing the parts.