Alien 5: Sigourney Weaver says Neill Blomkamp's sequel is still happening

That's despite the fact Ridley Scott's own Prometheus sequel, Alien: Covenant, is currently in production

It was thought fairly safe to assume Neill Blomkamp's Alien sequel was dead in the water.

Though furiously hyped after Blomkamp released a slate of concept art for the film, news then dropped that Ridley Scott was moving forward with his own Prometheus sequel/Alien prequel; later confusingly named Alien: Covenant. Surely production wouldn't be moving ahead with two concurrent, competing Alien movies pitched at either sides of the timeline?

It turns out, yes. Blomkamp's Alien 5 lives; with Ellen Ripley herself, Sigourney Weaver, telling an audience at tech giant VMware (via Aggressive Comix) that the project has just been put on temporary hold.

"Well, I think it is," Weaver stated. "Ridley asked Neill not to make our Alien 'til after Prometheus 2; he wanted his movie to shoot and be released first. But it’s an amazing script, and Neill and I are really excited about doing it. We’re doing other things until we can get going on that. I’d be really surprised if we didn't do it; because it’s such a great script, and we love working together. So, it’s just going to take a little bit longer to get out to you, but it’ll be worth the wait."

Scott's Alien: Covenant essentially continues the narrative of Prometheus; as the colony ship Covenant discovers a new planet, only to find its sole inhabitant is the 'synthetic' David (Michael Fassbender), survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition.

Alien: Covenant is set for release in the US on 4 August 2017; so there's no word yet on how far the delay on Alien 5 will extend.