Sigourney Weaver Received 50-Page Treatment for New ‘Alien,’ but Ripley ‘Deserves a Rest’
Zack Sharf
The future of Ridley Scott’s “Alien” franchise is unclear, but one thing that’s almost certain is it won’t include Sigourney Weaver’s original hero Ripley. “District 9” filmmaker Neill Blomkamp spent years developing a fifth “Alien” movie centered around Weaver’s character only for the plans to fall through. However, franchise veterans still want to see Ripley return in a new “Alien” movie.
Weaver confirms to Empire magazine that Walter Hill sent her a 50-page treatment for “a different take on a fifth Ripley film” within the last year and a half. Hill is best known as the director of films like “The Warriors” and “48 Hrs.,” but he’s also served as producer on every “Alien” movie and has a story credit on James Cameron’s “Aliens.”
Weaver would not disclose what Hill’s 50-page treatment entails, but she did say that she’s not too eager to return to the role that made her an international action star. “I don’t know,” she told Empire. “Ridley has gone in a different direction. Maybe Ripley has done her bit. She deserves a rest.”
The last time Weaver played Ripley was in Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s 1997 entry “Alien Resurrection.” Ridley Scott returned to the “Alien” franchise with the 2012 prequel “Prometheus” and its 2017 follow-up “Alien: Covenant.” Scott always intended to keep the franchise going, but “Covenant” was a box office disappointment ($240 million worldwide). Now that the studio behind “Alien,” Fox, is owned by Disney, plans for the next “Alien” film have gone silent. Scott told the Los Angeles Times earlier this month he’s still eager to continue.
“I still think there’s a lot of mileage in ‘Alien,’ but I think you’ll have to now re-evolve,” Scott said. “What I always thought when I was making it, the first one, why would a creature like this be made and why was it traveling in what I always thought was a kind of war-craft, which was carrying a cargo of these eggs. What was the purpose of the vehicle and what was the purpose of the eggs? That’s the thing to question — who, why, and for what purpose is the next idea, I think.”
Scott is currently on hiatus from filming his next epic, the Ben Affleck and Matt Damon-starring “The Last Duel.” The movie is scheduled to be released this Christmas, although there are still some weeks of production that remain. Weaver, meanwhile, is returning to her other major franchise with a role in Cameron’s “Avatar” sequels.
