Alien’s Sigourney Weaver Addresses Reprising Ellen Ripley in the Future

Over the course of two decades, Sigourney Weaver starred in four different entries in the Alien franchise, though it’s been almost 30 years since audiences last saw her Ellen Ripley in Alien: Resurrection. For some audiences, Ripley is the most integral component of a successful entry in the saga, but based on the financial and critical success of Alien: Romulus, it would seem the franchise has come back from the dead. Understandably, audiences are wondering if the revival of Alien could see Ripley return in a future installment, and while Weaver confirms it’s “not impossible” that she could reprise the role, she also thinks Ripley has “earned her rest.”

“I feel like she’s never far away from me, but on the other hand I have yet to read a script that said ‘you have got to do this.’ So for me, she is in this other dimension, safe from the Alien for the time being. I don’t really think about it, but you know, it’s not completely impossible, and certainly a lot of good filmmakers are inspired by the material,” Weaver confessed to Deadline. “How much does the public really need or want another Ripley movie? I don’t really sit around and think about it, but if it came up, I would consider it. It has come up a bunch of times, but I’m also busy doing other things. Ripley has earned her rest.”

In the wake of Resurrection, the Alien franchise continued with two films that were crossovers with the Predator franchise. In 2011, original Alien director Ridley Scott returned to the franchise to deliver Prometheus, a prequel that only had tenuous connections to the established mythology.

With Prometheus earning mixed reactions from audiences and critics alike, the years following that prequel’s release were complicated for longtime Alien fans. At the time, however, Sigourney Weaver had been collaborating with filmmaker Neill Blomkamp first on his movie Chappie and then in his series of short films from Oats Studios. This relationship saw Blomkamp take to social media to start sharing concept art for a planned Alien 5, which would have followed the events of Aliens and brought back Weaver’s Ripley, as well as Michael Biehn’s Hicks. 

The details Blomkamp had teased about his Alien 5 excited audiences, though Scott returned to the franchise to develop the Prometheus sequel Alien: Covenant. As far as whether Blomkamp’s movie ever earned substantial momentum with 20th Century Fox has been debated by the parties involved.

Stay tuned for updates on the Alien franchise.

Would you like to see Weaver return to the series? Contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!