Long before Alien director Ridley Scott returned to the franchise with his sci-fi epic Prometheus – a prequel meant to bridge directly into his 1979 masterpiece – a fifth film was in the works that would have sent Ripley back to the Xenomorph’s home planet to destroy them all.
Its been a whopping 23 years since Alien Resurrection graced the big screen and started the conversation of Sigourney Weaver‘s character getting a proper sendoff. Neill Blomkamp had been developing is own take on a sequel that would continue Ripley’s story following the events of Aliens, but that would get axed as Scott returned to launch a brand new saga.
With the perfect storm of Alien: Covenant underperforming and Disney’s acquisition of all things Fox, production was quickly shut down on Alien: Awakening, the third film in his new series, and everything has been quiet on that front since.
Things took an interesting turn last week when Sigourney Weaver revealed that producer Walter Hill had shared a 50-page treatment for a new sequel with her in hopes of convincing the star to return one final time as Ellen Ripley. Her response wasn’t what fans would want to hear: “Maybe Ripley has done her bit,” Weaver told Empire Magazine. “She deserves a rest.”
Syfy Wire reached out to Hill for more information on this treatment only to learn that it’s very real, sharing the below photo of the cover page for Alien V. Dated this past March, the photo also reveals it was co-written by producer David Giler, who also co-wrote Alien3 with Hill.
This is huge news because it tells us that franchise producers Walter Hill and David Giler are planning a proper, canonized sequel to Alien Resurrection, which would give Ripley that long-gestured finale we’ve been promised for almost 25 years now.
“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,” Hill said in a statement to the website.
Digressing, what’s most interesting about the below treatment’s cover page is the extension of the classic Alien tagline “In space, no one can hear you scream” to include “In space, no one can hear you dream“. There are more clues to the story with the inclusion of the Edgar Allan Poe quote, “All that we see or seem / Is but a dream within a dream”, William Tecumseh Sherman’s line “War is hell”.
It seems to imply a further exploration into creation/cloning, a battle of consciousness, and the idea of breaking what we’ve been perceiving as reality. Who knows what kind of horrific sci-fi twists are in store for Ripley?
With all of that said, there are a ton of roadblocks in the way of Alien V ever coming to fruition, most notably is Weaver’s age (she’s now 70), and the fact that Disney now owns the property. While the newly branded Searchlight Pictures has been going hard into R-rated territory, it’s unclear if the Alien franchise would fit into their new model.
The good news here is that it’s out there now and that puts some pressure on all parties to make something happen before it’s too late.
Thoughts?
Source: Credit: Brandywine Productions / Syfy Wire
source https://bloody-disgusting.com/movie/3620580/walter-hills-alien-v-treatment-real-requires-sigourney-weaver-return-ripley/
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