Walter Hill’s ‘Alien V Requires Sigourney Weaver to Return

[Worship.my.wreck]

Walter Hill’s ‘Alien V’ Treatment is Very Real, But Requires Sigourney Weaver to Return as Ripley

Long before Alien director Ridley Scott returned to the franchise with his sci-fi epic Prometheus – a prequel meant to bridge directly into his 1979 masterpiece – a fifth film was in the works that would have sent Ripley back to the Xenomorph’s home planet to destroy them all.

Its been a whopping 23 years since Alien Resurrection graced the big screen and started the conversation of Sigourney Weaver‘s character getting a proper sendoff. Neill Blomkamp had been developing is own take on a sequel that would continue Ripley’s story following the events of Aliens, but that would get axed as Scott returned to launch a brand new saga.

With the perfect storm of Alien: Covenant underperforming and Disney’s acquisition of all things Fox, production was quickly shut down on Alien: Awakening, the third film in his new series, and everything has been quiet on that front since.

Things took an interesting turn last week when Sigourney Weaver revealed that producer Walter Hill had shared a 50-page treatment for a new sequel with her in hopes of convincing the star to return one final time as Ellen Ripley. Her response wasn’t what fans would want to hear: “Maybe Ripley has done her bit,” Weaver told Empire Magazine. “She deserves a rest.”

Syfy Wire reached out to Hill for more information on this treatment only to learn that it’s very real, sharing the below photo of the cover page for Alien V. Dated this past March, the photo also reveals it was co-written by producer David Giler, who also co-wrote Alien3 with Hill.

This is huge news because it tells us that franchise producers Walter Hill and David Giler are planning a proper, canonized sequel to Alien Resurrection, which would give Ripley that long-gestured finale we’ve been promised for almost 25 years now.


Long before Alien director Ridley Scott returned to the franchise with his sci-fi epic Prometheus – a prequel meant to bridge directly into his 1979 masterpiece – a fifth film was in the works that would have sent Ripley back to the Xenomorph’s home planet to destroy them all.

Its been a whopping 23 years since Alien Resurrection graced the big screen and started the conversation of Sigourney Weaver‘s character getting a proper sendoff. Neill Blomkamp had been developing is own take on a sequel that would continue Ripley’s story following the events of Aliens, but that would get axed as Scott returned to launch a brand new saga.


With the perfect storm of Alien: Covenant underperforming and Disney’s acquisition of all things Fox, production was quickly shut down on Alien: Awakening, the third film in his new series, and everything has been quiet on that front since.

Things took an interesting turn last week when Sigourney Weaver revealed that producer Walter Hill had shared a 50-page treatment for a new sequel with her in hopes of convincing the star to return one final time as Ellen Ripley. Her response wasn’t what fans would want to hear: “Maybe Ripley has done her bit,” Weaver told Empire Magazine. “She deserves a rest.”

Syfy Wire reached out to Hill for more information on this treatment only to learn that it’s very real, sharing the below photo of the cover page for Alien V. Dated this past March, the photo also reveals it was co-written by producer David Giler, who also co-wrote Alien3 with Hill.

This is huge news because it tells us that franchise producers Walter Hill and David Giler are planning a proper, canonized sequel to Alien Resurrection, which would give Ripley that long-gestured finale we’ve been promised for almost 25 years now.

“Sigourney, as she has from the very beginning, is being too modest about her proven ability to pull off the idea — which is to tell a story that scares the pants off your date, kicks the ass of a new Xenomorph, and conducts a meditation on both the universe of the Alien franchise and the destiny of the character of Lt. Ellen Ripley,” Hill said in a statement to the website.

Digressing, what’s most interesting about the below treatment’s cover page is the extension of the classic Alien tagline “In space, no one can hear you scream” to include “In space, no one can hear you dream“. There are more clues to the story with the inclusion of the Edgar Allan Poe quote, “All that we see or seem / Is but a dream within a dream”, William Tecumseh Sherman’s line “War is hell”.

It seems to imply a further exploration into creation/cloning, a battle of consciousness, and the idea of breaking what we’ve been perceiving as reality. Who knows what kind of horrific sci-fi twists are in store for Ripley?

With all of that said, there are a ton of roadblocks in the way of Alien V ever coming to fruition, most notably is Weaver’s age (she’s now 70), and the fact that Disney now owns the property. While the newly branded Searchlight Pictures has been going hard into R-rated territory, it’s unclear if the Alien franchise would fit into their new model.

The good news here is that it’s out there now and that puts some pressure on all parties to make something happen before it’s too late.

Thoughts?

https://bloody-disgusting.com/movie/...return-ripley/

[Michael24]

Its been a whopping 23 years since Alien Resurrection . . .

That hit me a lot harder than I expected. I mean, 23 years?! That just doesn't seem possible!

In any event, I would love one more outing with Ripley. I have no doubt Sigourney Weaver could pull it off.

[Worship.my.wreck]

Doesn't sound like Sigourney really cares about coming back, going by her comments from a few days ago. I think they just need to throw the bank at her. IDC what they have to do, but i need this to happen.

[trevanian]

She'll be all in for useless and unnecessary AVATAR sequels (I could've done without having seen the first one) but not willing to do this? I really don't understand many of her role choices recently at all ... maybe this is just a negotiating ploy.

[Samus Aran]

There are two versions of the Exorcist prequel. There will be two versions of Justice League. Why not let everyone make their own Alien 5 -- Walter Hill, Neill Blomkamp, Ridley Scott, Paul Feig, James Franco, just go for it.

[AllOuttaBubbleGum]

Originally Posted by Worship.my.wreck

Doesn't sound like Sigourney really cares about coming back, going by her comments from a few days ago. I think they just need to throw the bank at her. IDC what they have to do, but i need this to happen.

I'm guessing Weaver knows those comments from a few days ago are how to get that bank thrown at her.

Well, I hope Ridley Scott has enough clout to shove this project out the airlock. At this point, Ripley--

[Show spoiler]The Cloned and Deceased

(does the order even matter?)--is beyond mythologized, beyond comic book...and I worry any further involvement from her would result in a film so forced and fantastically inorganic*, it'll have android blood coursing through its cynical veins.

*...especially if they pull a 'Dallas' and it was all just a dream so they can start fresh after ALIEN(s) and employ the in vogue, de-aging CGI a la Scorsese's The Irishman...



..

[Jay H.]

Love Weaver, but no. Ripley's arc ends in part 3. Resurrection is awful.

[Poya]

Originally Posted by Jay H.

Love Weaver, but no. Ripley's arc ends in part 3. Resurrection is awful.

It ended with Aliens.

[thecooldud]

Anything would be better than another Ridley Scott embarrassment.

[sandman slim]

Originally Posted by Samus Aran

There are two versions of the Exorcist prequel. There will be two versions of Justice League. Why not let everyone make their own Alien 5 -- Walter Hill, Neill Blomkamp, Ridley Scott, Paul Feig, James Franco, just go for it.

"You get an Alien 5! And you get an Alien 5! Everybody gets an Alien 5!!!"

[spider-neil]

Originally Posted by thecooldud

Anything would be better than another Ridley Scott embarrassment.

I thought the first 15 minutes of Prometheus is excellent. So we do have that.

[spider-neil]

You're not going to outdo Alien for scares.
You're not going to outdo Aliens for action.
So double down on the psychological trauma of being haunted by an alien race most of your adult life.

[DR Herbert West]

Just give me the third prequel.

[moreorless]

My fear would be that getting her too return is just another case of cheap "audience maximisation" ala the Terminator franchise. Just like Dark Fate was a low rent T2 retred potentially a low rent Aliens retred.

If your going that route then I'd say do what the Terminator sequels always shied away from and show "Alien judgement day", show Xeno's coming to earth causing an apocalypse.

[Himmel]

First and foremost Scott needs to finish the story he wants to tell. As for Ripley I would love to see what is planned for her character. Hopefully it won't be that ridiculous clone version.

[CreasyBear]

I'd rather see a Covenant sequel, but I also down for this too.

[moreorless]

The main thing they need is to get someone with some creative vision involved IMHO, I'd be fine with Scott directing if he had a great script to work with rather than the confused script by committee stuff we've seen in the last two films.

[imsounoriginal]

Would rather let Scott close out the Prometheus/Covenant trilogy.

[mjvmovieman]

Sigourney and Biehn were on board to do Alien: Awakening with Blomkamp a few years ago. I was excited about that project because Sigourney was clearly excited about the story.

I'm wondering with how everything crashed and burned on that film, that maybe she's playing coy about getting a Ripley-led movie up and going again in order to keep hopes at bay.

[LeftHandedGuitarist]

I'm always interested to see Weaver back, she's the heart of the franchise. Resurrection was bad (but had a GREAT cast) but where the story goes from there has all sorts of intriguing possibilities.

As exciting as the Blomkamp project was, I was always a bit miffed that it was going to ignore Alien 3, which is probably my favourite film of the series. Yeah, I'm weird.