Sigourney Weaver says Walter Hill’s Alien 5 script is something “very different”
A decade ago, Neill Blomkamp attempted to bring Sigourney Weaver back as Alien franchise heroine Ripley in an Alien 5 that would have been a follow-up to Aliens, setting Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection aside… but that project got scrapped while Ridley Scott worked on his divisive Alien: Covenant. Five years ago, franchise producer Walter Hill revealed that he and fellow producer David Giler had written a fifty page treatment for a new sequel that would star Weaver as Ripley. At the time, Weaver wasn’t sure if the idea would move forward, or even if it should. (She told Empire Magazine, “Maybe Ripley has done her bit. She deserves a rest.”) But now, she seems to be coming around to the idea – and during a Q&A at the Cinémathèque Française in Paris this past Friday, she said she’s waiting to see how Hill’s script turns out, teasing that he’s working on something that would be “very different” from the original film, which was screened before the Q&A began.
During a recent appearance at New York Comic Con, Weaver told fans (with thanks to Screen Rant for the transcription) that Hill had written “a very strong first 50 pages. I was always like, ‘Let (Ripley) rest, let her recover.’ But what Walter has written first of all seems so true to me. It’s about a society who would incarcerate someone who’s tried to help mankind but she’s a problem for them… I don’t know if it’s gonna happen but I have had a meeting with Fox, or Disney or whoever it is now.” She has also said that what he’s writing is “quite extraordinary.” At the Cinémathèque Française, she said (with thanks to AVP Galaxy for the transcription), “Walter Hill has written about 50 pages. Maybe, by now, he’s written more about where Ripley might be now. And although I’ve never particularly wanted to go back to the series, there’s something about her experience being sidelined now, probably by this society, by this company, by this world and being probably around 200 years old, but still Ripley and you know, presumably these problems still out there. So I’m going to see what happens with Walter’s script. It would not be like what we’ve seen tonight (the original Alien). It would not be running around through airshafts. It would be a very different kind of story.“
Walter Hill, the director of such awesome films as The Warriors, 48 Hrs., and Streets of Fire, among others, has been involved with the Alien franchise since the beginning. He has gotten a producer credit on every installment in the franchise, received a story credit on Aliens, and worked on the screenplay for Alien 3 (same for Giler)… and I’ve always wondered why Hill never decided to direct one of these films himself. It would have been very cool to see a Hill-directed Alien at some point. Well, he’s 83 and Ridley Scott is still going strong at 87, so maybe we still can get a Hill-directed Alien.
As for Blomkamp’s scrapped project, Weaver said, “It was a wonderful script and unfortunately, it was at that point I think that Ridley Scott decided to be very possessive about the series and really drilled down on his prequels. And so I think it was a disaster for that project. We were never able to… I think Neill in fact just gave up and he’s so talented. I wish him all the best.” Weaver also had this to say about the Alien: Earth TV series that recently aired: “I loved Alien: Earth. I thought it was remarkable. So interesting, terrifying about our world and yet you could understand… you can imagine a world where each tech bro owns a planet. You know, it’s not that far from where America is now. So, I’m glad to see that Alien has legs, as they say, in the business. And I think it’s a very interesting time for the series.“
I was totally on board for Neill Blomkamp’s Alien 5, and now I’m totally on board with the idea of seeing Walter Hill and Sigourney Weaver team up to bring Ripley back to the screen. Are you interested in finding out more about this “very different” story Hill is writing? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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