Alien 5 Producer Says Sigourney Weaver's Ripley Is Key for the New Sequel

Last week saw Alien franchise star Sigourney Weaver seemingly shoot down the possibility of her ever returning to the sci-fi/horror franchise, telling Empire magazine: "I don't know. Ridley (Scott, director) has gone in a different direction. Maybe Ripley has done her bit. She deserves a rest." This squashing of chances of another sequel as her fan-favorite character has not deterred the minds behind the franchise though. Franchise producer Walter Hill has broken his silence about the whole thing and confirmed that development continues on a fifth Alien movie with both he and writer/producer David Giler working on a treatment.

In a statement to SYFY WIRE, Hill writes: "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."

The outlet also included a photo from Hill of these treatment that has been written for a fifth Alien movie, simply titled "Alien V" on its cover page. The page also has some very curious references to dreams as well, including the franchise's famous tagline "In space no one can hear you scream," which is accompanied with an alternate version that reads "In space no one can hear you dream." There's also a line from Edgar Allan Poe that reads "All that we see or seem. Is but a dream within a dream," and William Tecumseh Sherman's famous "War is Hell" quotation.

All of these lines seemingly allude to a film that is set entirely within a dream if the cover page quotes are as surface level as they appear. There are plenty of opportunities in the Alien series for Ellen Ripley to be found dreaming as the character spends most of the time between sequels napping in cryo-sleep. These quotes also call back to an exchange that Ripley has with Newt at the end of Aliens about dreaming.

Despite Hill's insistence that a new movie is being worked on and that Weaver should reconsider her involvement, the likelihood of another Alien movie happening is very up in the air at this point. The last entry in the franchise, 2017's Alien: Covenant, made a dismal $74 million at the domestic box office despite grossing over $240 million worldwide. In the time since then the franchise has also come under the ownership of The Walt Disney Company, who purchased 20th Century Fox outright. Though "The Mouse" has previously alluded to allowing the series to continue in some form, no concrete plans have ever been confirmed.