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Movie musicals are having quite the moment, from Wicked to Sing Sing and *that* other one drenched in controversy, but perhaps the last film worthy of the musical treatment is Ridley Scott’s terrifying 1979 sci-fi classic Alien.
Well, at least not if you’re Bong Joon-ho. The Oscar-winning Parasite director recently expressed interest in helming a version of the Alien franchise that, if he had it his way, would be riddled with singing and jazz-handsing Xenomorphs. To be clear, I like musicals as much as the next guy — and while I’m confident Alien star Sigourney Weaver could hold a tune with the rest of ‘em — I fear an Alien musical would be more outlandish than Emilia Pérez… which is saying a lot.
Bong Joon-ho says he is “not drawn to franchise films, but I did think at one point that I would like to do an ‘ALIEN’ film… An ‘ALIEN’ musical.”
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It helps that Joon-ho seemed to have made the suggestion in jest, during a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times. The director — whose Parasite follow-up, Mickey 17, hit cinemas this week — spoke of an Alien musical regarding his thoughts on movie franchises, which aren’t his cup of tea. “I’m not drawn to franchise films,” Joon-ho said, sending shivers down the Russo brothers’ spines, “but I did think at one point that I would like to do an Alien film.” Not just any Alien film, Joon-ho said, but “an Alien musical.”
Interestingly, the director’s admission came just days after he revealed that while he’s a fan of musicals, he’s not so much a fan of, you know, the musical-ness of it all. “I have a lot of respect for musicals,” the filmmaker said on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, particularly shouting out Jesus Christ Superstar and All That Jazz. “But I could never make a musical, I can’t stand the minute they start to sing,” he added. When those who start singing are a bunch of biomechanical aliens, I’m sure the entire enterprise would start to feel a little ridiculous for Joon-ho, who should never besmirch musicals in front of Wicked fans.
Whatever Joon-ho lacks on the musical front for this hypothetical Alien film, he more than makes up for on the sci-fi front. Mickey 17 stars Robert Pattinson as a character who is sent on a human expedition to colonize the ice world of Niflheim, with body cloning and memory wiping naturally ensuing. Some early reviews have even compared the sci-fi film to Alien, particularly its evil space corporation to the face-hugging extraterrestrials. For those curious, Mickey 17 is not a musical, no matter how amazing it would be to watch Edward Cullen bust out into show tunes on some faraway planet.
We also know that work is already underway on Joon-ho’s follow-up to Mickey 17, an as-yet untitled horror animation that he first began developing in 2019. The director has referred to the movie as his “life project,” and described it as “a really unique story about deep sea creatures.” He even went as far as sharing a release window, saying this mysterious (non-musical) animation could arrive sometime in 2027. At that point, we’ll all probably be on board spaceships to foreign ice kingdoms, but rest assured that if Joon-ho is piloting, there’ll be no space held for the lyrics to “Defying Gravity”.