Alien 5 Is Being Worked On, It’s All About Ripley

Franchise producer Walter Hill has put together a treatment for Alien 5 and it'll only happen if Sigourney Weaver is on board.

By Liana Keane | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

Alien 5

There have been other entries in the Alien franchise since 1997’s fourth film Alien Resurrection, but none of them were really direct sequels to the Ripley Saga. There’s been no Alien 5. But it looks like it may be happening now. Franchise producer Walter Hill has put together a treatment for Alien 5 and it’ll only happen if Sigourney Weaver is on board.

They can’t do it without Sigourney because the story hinges on her Ellen Ripley character. Hill tells SyFy Wire that Ripley’s “destiny” is key to the film he’s developing.

Here’s how Walter Hill explains his plan: “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.

While in the past Sigourney Weaver has been open to doing an Alien 5, more recently she said, “I don’t know. Ridley has gone in a different direction. Maybe Ripley has done her bit. She deserves a rest.

It sounds like Weaver’s hesitance has more to do with the weird direction Ridley Scott has taken the franchise in recent years with less well liked movies likes Prometheus.

A Previous Attempt To Make Alien 5

Hicks

A few years ago Neill Blomkamp tried and failed to get an Alien 5 off the ground. There was a lot of talk about whether or not Michael Biehn would reprise his role as Corporal Dwayne Hicks from James Cameron’s 1986 sequel Aliens.

It got far enough along that when a Reddit user caught up with Biehn at a comic con in Pensacola, Florida recently and asked him a couple quick questions about his potential involvement in Alien 5. When asked if he had been contacted about the film, he reportedly smiled and said, “Yes,” and when asked if he is going to do it, he said, “Looks like it.”

The talk first started when Blomkamp released concept art for Alien 5. No one knew he was working on it, and it seemed more like something he was doing for fun rather than as a potential new film. Biehn’s Hicks character figured prominently in the images.

It was thought that the action of Blomkamp’s movie could happen between Aliens and Alien 3, and it was possible that Ripley and Hicks, and probably Newt, wake up from Hypersleep, have an adventure, and go back to Hypersleep where they are at the beginning of Alien 3.

Unfortunately Neill Blomkamp’s Alien 5 died on the vine, making way for Walter Hill’s new pitch.