District 9 and Elysium director Neill Blomkamp grabbed some attention last month when he dropped a batch of unofficial concept art for a nonexistent Alien sequel onto the Internet. As far as anyone knew, Blomkamp wasn’t working on an Alien movie—his latest picture, Chappie, hits theaters on March 6—but he certainly did have a lot of pictures of xenomorph queens and bomb-toting Ellens Ripley floating around his social media presence.
Intrigued by this Instagram drive-by, Collider’s Perri Nemiroff tracked Blomkamp down while he was doing promotion for Chappie and asked after the provenance of all that fancy unofficial art. His answer: He commissioned it himself, because Neill Blomkamp would really like to make an Alien movie:
“There was a reason. I wanted to make that film. I still may make that film. It may happen. But I did it on my own time. Like when Chappie was winding down in post and I had available time, I started to work on it.”
Blomkamp went on to add that he was also inspired by talking to Sigourney Weaver on the set of Chappie. Given that Alien and Aliens are Blomkamp’s favorite movies, it’s fun to imagine those conversations, and the light slowly fading from Weaver’s eyes as she answers her millionth question about the famous chestburster scene.
Despite apparently working on the film on his own, Blomkamp did suggest he had at least unofficial interest from Alien producer Fox. According to Blomkamp, “I never officially spoke to Fox about [making a new Alien movie], but Fox wanted to make it.” Blomkamp went on to say that he may or may not make the movie another few times, before finishing with a definitive, “Maybe.”
It’s not clear if this sudden release of concept art was wishful thinking, a savvy stealth campaign to get the job, or just Blomkamp’s admittedly adorable dedication to the Alien universe. Either way, though, it’s been a big boon for DeviantArt’s small but thriving “badly scarred Michael Biehn fetishist” community.