The Chances of Ripley Coming Back to the Alien Franchise Just Got Higher
Sigourney Weaver is interested in returning to the Alien franchise for the first time in a long time.
It looks like Sigourney Weaver may not be done with the Alien franchise after all. During a panel at New York Comic Con (via EW) last week, the actress revealed that she has “had a meeting” about reprising the role of Ellen Ripley in a new Alien sequel penned by Walter Hill, calling the concept “a very different kind of Alien.”
According to Weaver, Hill, who produced Ridley Scott’s original Alien movie, is already 50-odd pages deep on a new script that hopes to explore Ripley’s life in the present day. “It’s very much about the society that would incarcerate someone who has tried to help mankind, but she’s a problem to them, so she’s tucked away.”
While Weaver stopped short of confirming any greenlight or production, she did seem genuinely interested in the new material, which would explore a more grounded Ripley: “It would not be running around air shafts. It would be a very different kind of Alien with a really good script. Scary.”
It’s the first time Weaver has been keen to return to Ripley in a long time, having lost interest after District 9 director Neill Blomkamp’s intriguing Alien 5 project fell apart. “I was always like, ‘Let her rest! Let her recover!’” But, she added, Hill’s draft “seems so true to me.”
Weaver also spoke about watching Noah Hawley’s TV show set in the xenomorphic universe, Alien: Earth, admitting she’s behind on the FX series because she’s still scared of the aliens. “I don’t want to see it by myself in case one of those things comes out of the screen,” she joked, but said the show has “just exploded some of the themes that have always been part of the Alien series, and I think it’s beautifully cast and beautifully done. I can’t believe it’s television, frankly.”
Whether Ripley will return to Alien is still up in the air, but most fans of the franchise agree that the character’s presence in any project would be most welcome. Blomkamp may never have realized his dream of making Alien 5 with Weaver, but he’s previously said there’s “an opportunity to do one more film with Sigourney in a way that may have satiated what people were looking for.”
Is this finally it?
Written by
Kirsten Howard has paid their dues. Yes sir, the check is in the mail.