Just a few months ago, the thought of another Alien movie making its way to theaters seemed impossible. All fans had to go on were the underwhelming Prometheus and video games — an actual big-screen return for the franchise just didn't seem to be in the cards. Then, Neill Blomkamp started posting concept art to his Instagram account. While Alien fans everywhere immediately went nuts, it was far from a confirmation that Blomkamp would be working on a sequel... then, a few days later, Blomkamp confirmed that he'd be working on a sequel.

Since then, it's been nothing but good news: Sigourney Weaver signed on immediately, with Michael Biehn following close behind, and Bill Paxton and Sharlto Copley expressing interest in joining the project. In an age of reboots and recasting, it's more than Alien fans could have hoped for.

The movie is still only in its early planning stages, so it'll likely be years before fans even get to see any footage. That said, it's not as if fans won't get to see anything, as Blomkamp has just revealed his next piece of concept art:

 #alien going very well. Love this project

A photo posted by Brownsnout (@neillblomkamp) on Jul 16, 2015 at 12:07pm PDT

True, the art doesn't reveal much, but it's pretty easy to tell that the focus is on Ripley and Hicks. Sadly, there's no Xenomorph to be found, but there are a surprising number of still-living humans in the shot — perhaps Ripley won't be quite as isolated as she has been in previous movies.

Of course, that might not be the real Ripley after all: almost immediately after the film was revealed, rumors that Blomkamp would be ignoring the third and fourth films (as well as the video game Colonial Marines) began circulating. Blomkamp has since denied those rumors, but considering Hicks is seemingly alive and well in the concept art, a retcon might be impossible to avoid.

For a good long while, it looked like Alien was doomed to never hit the silver screen again. Hopefully, things go a bit more smoothly than they have in the past — nobody wants a repeat of Alien 3.

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