Despite Fox putting Neill Blomkamp’s Alien prequel/sequel on hold, Deadline is reporting that they’re planning to hire Blomkamp as director for a new project. The studio bought the rights to “The Gone World”, an upcoming novel by “Tomorrow and Tomorrow” author Thomas Sweterlitsch. While “The Gone World” hasn’t been written yet, “Tomorrow and Tomorrow” was a success and Fox is killing two birds with one stone: buy the rights to a potential hit and hire the director whose earlier project they nixed. All is amended.
“Tomorrow and Tomorrow” was a dystopian sci-fi novel from last year that garnered substantial critical acclaim and the plot was of the stuff right up Blomkamp’s alley, enough that Fox believes Sweterlitsch’s forthcoming novel will suit the director well. Deadline however was only able to say “The Gone World” is a “sci-fi time travel procedural” as far as plot details go. Not much to go off of there but hopefully more will come once Sweterlitsch begins writing it, if he hasn’t begun already.
Back in February, Blomkamp’s independent attempt at directing his own Alien installment got the green light by Fox after they saw the internet go ape-shit over his slick concept art. Simultaneously, Ridley Scott was getting to work on his Prometheus sequel but in September, Scott’s project became less of a Prometheus sequel and more of an Alien prequel. The directors’ projects collided and Fox had to pull the plug on Blomkamp’s.
The move was met with mixed opinions from fans but hey, now he’s got a new and potentially really exciting project to work on. Aside from directing though, Blomkamp plans on penning the script too. Unfortunately, he’s not the strongest scriptwriter. While District 9 was an excellent debut that went on to get four Oscar nominations, his follow-ups Elysium and Chappie suffered from narrative issues and clunky writing. Blomkamp has even admitted he’s not a big fan of the screenwriting process, telling Fast Company “I hate writing the script. It’s like having root canal surgery.”
Oof.
Yet despite his feelings about screenwriting, he’s penned all of his films and was going to write his Alien film as well. While he may be planning on writing “The Gone World” too, he should either consider assigning that duty to someone else or honing in his writing skills. Most fans just want to see Blomkamp bounce back and create something closer in quality to his freshman effort District 9. With Fox’s support and some potentially great material to work from, hopefully this could mean a grand return for a truly talented director.
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