Cooling his boots following the shelving of his Alien sequel, Neill Blomkamp may have found his next project. The consolation prize he's been offered by Alien studio Fox is The Gone World, based on a forthcoming novel by Thomas Sweterlisch. If he accepts, Blomkamp will both direct and write the screenplay. Peter Chernin will produce.
The Gone World is Sweterlisch's second novel following last year's Tomorrow And Tomorrow, which got him compared to Philip K. Dick, Raymond Chandler and William Burroughs. That one was a cyberpunky exploration of humanity's relationship to virtual environments, set in the ruins of a demolished Pittsburgh. Not much is yet known about the new book, but Deadline believe it's a "sci-fi time travel procedural". So it sounds like it's right in the wheelhouse of the man who made District 9, Elysium and Chappie.
If you somehow missed it, Blomkamp's Alien arrived in a flurry of activity at the beginning of this year, just as Chappie was hitting cinemas. Blomkamp released some just-for-fun Alien designs online, featuring both Sigourney Weaver's Ripley and Michael Biehn's melty-faced Corporal Hicks. The internet went crazy, and Fox got excited and put the project in development, but it's since been back-burnered in favour of Ridley Scott's Prometheus follow-up Alien: Paradise Lost.
Fox won The Gone World after several studios had pursued it, but there's no timescale or potential start date so far. If Blomkamp does sign up, his immediate job will be to get it written. A while away yet then, but as always, watch this space.