A 27-Year-Old Newt Would Reportedly Star in Neill Blomkamp’s Alien Film

Jill Pantozzi | November 24th, 2015

Though we’re still unclear as to the actual status of the film, actor Michael Biehn has updated us on Neill Blomkamp’s Alien project. Specifically that it will star a 27-year-old Newt!

You may recall Blomkamp’s Alien revival film was last in a holding position, perhaps due to Ridley Scott’s interference. While Scott is busy changing the name of next Prometheus film yet again, the actors potentially involved in Blomkamp’s project are still talking about it.

Biehn spoke to Icons of Fright about 24 Hour Rental, a comedy series he’s currently starring in and eventually got on the topic of… well this movie doesn’t have a name yet so for expediency we’ll just say Alien.

They’re talking about doing another ALIENS movie, with Neill Blomkamp, and Fox came and announced it and Sigourney (Weaver) has come out and announced it. The basic idea is acting like ALIEN3 and 4 never existed, so if you go on Neill Blomkamp’s site, everyone can see all of the artwork for that. I know Ridley Scott is doing his movie first and is going to be 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 (now titled ALIEN: COVENANT) 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, because they’re kind of two different worlds, with ALIENS taking place thousands of years later, which is how they explained it all to me, but at the same time, they want to give them a similar feel. I know they’re putting the brakes on Neill’s movie just for a little while, but I really think that it would be embarrassing to Ridley and Fox and Sigourney if they just didn’t make the movie.

I definitely can see why you wouldn’t want the films to come out near each other but it did seem Scott was cooling his heels on his project (he was busy with The Martian and is also working on a Blade Runner sequel) until Blomkamp revealed his ideas and plans. And speaking strictly as a fan, I’d much rather see Ripley back in action in a film that continues from where Aliens left off. Especially if you consider the tidbit Biehn dropped next.

I think when they put that out there and have pictures with me as Hicks again, people were excited and though I’m not into online stuff much, my kids saw a lot about it on Reddit. They were excited. They’re planning on bringing me and Newt back and at this point Newt will be around twenty-seven 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. That’s why you end up seeing TERMINATOR 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 10 and THE FAST AND FURIOUS 7, 8, 9, and 10. So when that happens, the ALIENS film, maybe that will be one more movie that I can make a mark with, plus, Neill is such a talented guy. When I saw DISTRICT 9 for the first time, I was glued to my seat, going “wow”. So I’m hopeful for that one.

In Aliens Biehn played Corporal Hicks, Carrie Henn played young Newt. Henn only has one other project on her IMDB page and that’s a 2016 film called Triborn which says it’s in pre-production. But you can bet, this being Hollywood and all, they wouldn’t even consider casting her anyway.

But the passing of the torch is such a phenomenal idea. As much as I enjoyed the prequel aspect of Prometheus, I always want to see what’s next. For instance Amanda Ripley, daughter of Ellen, was the main protagonist in the Alien: Isolation video game. That was beyond cool for me!

Scott’s Alien: Covenant is set to be released October 6, 2017 and its synopsis is as follows:

Ridley Scott returns to the universe he created in ALIEN with ALIEN: COVENANT, the second chapter in a prequel trilogy that began with PROMETHEUS — and connects directly to Scott’s 1979 seminal work of science fiction. Bound for a remote planet on the far side of the galaxy, the crew of the colony ship Covenant discovers what they think is an uncharted paradise, but is actually a dark, dangerous world — whose sole inhabitant is the “synthetic” David (Michael Fassbender), survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition.