Here’s a surprise: Sigourney Weaver says there is a new Alien script in the works. Even more surprising: She says they are “quite extraordinary.”
Weaver said this during an appearance on Friday at New York Comic-Con (via The Hollywood Reporter). She revealed that Walter Hill, one of the original producers of the Alien franchise, “wrote 50 pages where Ripley would be now.”
She cautioned: “I don’t know if it’s going to happen, but I have had a meeting with Fox, Disney, or whoever it is now … I said I have never felt the need. I was always like, let her rest, let her recover. But what Walter has written seems so true to me as very much about the society that would incarcerate someone who has tried to help mankind.”
Alien Resurrection (1997)
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This would not be the first time that Disney or Fox tried to bring Weaver back to the franchise that made her a major movie star. She played Ripley in four Alien movies through the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s. But her last appearance as Ripley came in 1997’s Alien Resurrection. (Where she was technically playing a clone of the original Ripley, but whatever.)
Prior to Disney’s acquisition of Fox, which released the original Alien quadrilogy, there was talk of a fifth Alien movie, which would have been directed by Neill Blomkamp. The film never materialized, although concept art for the project did emerge online. The movie would have been a direct sequel to Alien and Aliens, while ignoring the events of Alien 3 (where Ripley died destroying yet another xenomorph) and Alien Resurrection (which featured said Ripley clone). It would have featured both Ripley and the Hicks character, played by Michael Biehn, from James Cameron’s Aliens.
Since Disney acquired Fox, they have made a big-screen Alien legacyquel of sorts, Alien: Romulus. This summer they released a television series on Hulu called Alien: Earth.
Weaver described Hill’s script as…
[Ripley’s] a problem to them, so she’s sort of tucked away. Anyway, I think it’s a very strong first 50 pages, and I’m thinking about working with Walter to see what the rest of the story would be.
We’ll see whether this really does bring Ripley back, or whether it joins the likes of Alien 5 in the depths of xenomorph development hell.
