Michael Biehn has revealed that Alien 5 will focus on a grown-up Newt and is still very much going ahead, despite Ridley Scott's Alien: Covenant gathering momentum.
Recently, Scott revealed that his franchise sequel would still be a follow-up to 2012's Prometheus but with an Alien title that suggests it'll filter back towards the original film timelines. Speaking to Icons of Fright, Biehn (who played Corporal Hicks in Aliens) said, "I know Ridley Scott is doing his movie first." But thankfully that doesn't mean Alien 5, which is being directed by Neill Blomkamp, is to be scrapped or neglected.
He went on to clarify that the fifth Alien filmhas Scott as "the executive producer on this one, so I'm really looking forward to that. I know that Ridley's focus is on the second Prometheus and I'm sure that he and Fox both don't want that and Neill's movie to come out right next to each other."
Apparently, Fox are putting the brakes on Neill's movie "just for a little while," but the project is still very much happening. What's more, he even let slip that besides Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley, more original characters are set to make a return: "They're planning on bringing me and Newt back." Obviously this is massive news, not only because this means the timeline of Alien 5 definitely ignores Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection but that, in this other timeline that plays out, Newt doesn't die, as she does at the start of the David Fincher film.
He elaborated on the return of Newt, saying "at this point Newt will be around 27-years-old. I know that every actress in Hollywood is going to want to play this one, it's really a passing of the torch between Sigourney and this younger actress who would play Newt. It would keep the franchise alive and the studios would make money, because that's what the bottom line is now: money."
It's great news for those who preferred the first two movies to the less popular third and fourth, but in truth Fincher's third instalment does have its moments. At present, there's no release date for Blomkamp's Alien 5, but Scott's Alien: Covenant is set to hit US cinemas on October 6, 2017, with a UK date yet to be confirmed.
