The various attempts to get Alien 5 off the ground

Alien: Covenant which isn't Alien: Romulus
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It already feels like a lost sequel, that we can very very close to getting: how Alien 5 nearly came to life.

Spoilers for Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection lie ahead.

The Alien franchise proper – at least in its original run – finished in 1997 with Resurrection. That was the one in which Sigourney Weaver finally managed to beat the titular xenomorphs (and quite a lot more besides) and was preparing to return to Earth. Of course, technically speaking even this isn’t true, as the real Ripley died at the end of Alien 3, this version being a clone with superhuman strength and acid blood.

Confused yet?

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As with a lot of long running franchises including, at the time, Halloween and Friday the 13th, filmmakers had to come up with increasingly outlandish ways to keep their sequels fresh. Much like Jamie Lee Curtis, Weaver had a love/hate relationship with Alien that meant she soon reversed her decision to have Ripley killed off in Alien 3, hence the existence of Resurrection.

Alien 5 then was first all set to go in 1997. Fox boss Tom Rothman said at the time that “we firmly expect do another one; Joss Whedon [who’d penned Resurrection] will write it, and we expect to have Sigourney and Winona [Ryder] if they’re up for it”.

Weaver, however, wasn’t keen. And with Whedon quickly engrossed in making Buffy The Vampire Slayer, that version of the film never materialised. Even Ridley Scott and James Cameron couldn’t drum up any interest in another Alien and the project was quickly forgotten (albeit not by fans).

Alien Vs Predator arrived in 2004, directed by Paul W S Anderson. It was hot on the heels of 2003’s similarly headline grabbing horror crossover Freddy Vs Jason. It was successful enough for a sequel to be commissioned, but by 2007, any appetite audiences had for the Alien films had waned and Aliens Vs Predator – Requiem failed to live up to expectations, either with the audience or the at the box office.

There followed a period of radio silence, where nobody seemed to have any idea what to do with Alien. Then, in 2012, Ridley Scott released Prometheus, a prequel to the 1979 original that was a commercial success, even if fans were a little torn on it. However, this meant that any sequel that was to feature Weaver as Ripley moved to the backburner, and the chances of it happening seemed slimmer and slimmer. Fox wanted another Prometheus movie, and that was its priority.

Alien: Resurrection

Alien: Resurrection

Then, quite out of the blue, in 2014 the flame was reignited. Oscar-nominated director Neill Blomkamp was making the offbeat sci-fi actioner Chappie, a film in which Sigourney Weaver co-starred as ice cold CEO Michelle Bradley. And it all came down to a conversation Blomkamp had with Weaver on set, with him professing his love for the franchise and mentioning he had an idea for a fifth film. To his astonishment, Weaver liked his idea and suggested that Ripley could be in it. Delighted, Blomkamp immediately began reworking his story.

This idea definitely got as far as a screenplay, because Weaver later enthused about it at the San Diego Comic Con, saying that “four months later, I got this script that was so amazing. It gives fans everything they’re looking for.”. A piece of artwork depicting an older Ripley and Michael Biehn’s Dwayne Hicks appeared on Instagram in 2015 with a caption that read “Was working on this, don’t think I am anymore. Love it, though.”. With Blomkamp’s less than enthusiastic caption seemingly putting the kibosh on the idea, the images nevertheless gave fans a glorious glimpse into what they may have had, with Hicks being older, and it revealed that Blomkamp’s intention was to ignore Alien 3 and Resurrection completely.

The enthusiasm shown by fans towards the images and the choice of Blomkamp spurred the studio into action, and by February 2015 Alien 5 was back on the stove, with Scott producing and Blomkamp writing and directing.

In April 2016, Blomkamp once again teased his project with more concept art revealing the return of Newt, the little girl who survived the events of Aliens. Another character killed at the start of Alien 3, Newt was set to appear in Blomkamp’s sequel as a 20-something-year-old.

The concept art can be seen here.

Then, news dried up. It soon became apparent that Scott was busy with Alien: Covenant, the sequel to Prometheus that eventually emerged in 2017. Studio bosses began to get nervous, thinking that releasing a sequel and a prequel around the same time would confuse the audience.

Scott let slip during an interview that the film was to be called Alien: Awakening, but that it was not going ahead, saying that ““They wanted to do Alien: Awakening… Neill Blomkamp.  I said fine. I was going to be the producer. If I could have, I would have. Except I do question: why have both [Blomkamp’s Alien and Scott’s Alien] out there? It seems like shooting your big toe off – it doesn’t make sense. But they didn’t go forward with it, Fox, so I just kind of kept out of it”.

Alien Covenant

Alien Covenant

We may never know the true reason why Blomkamp’s Alien 5 never saw the light of day. Scott’s influence – as you can tell – was strongly said to be a factor: that he wanted Fox to pick between making Covenant and Alien 5. Given the $400m global gross of Prometheus there was only going to be one choice there. Maybe too it was the studio’s reluctance, or just the unfortunate timing of Prometheus and its sequels. In this case the stars never aligned and the project faded away.

Until, that is, Alien 5 was confirmed earlier this year. Completely separate from Blomkamp’s version, Don’t Breathe director Fede Alvarez is attached, with Scott again producing. It is being produced for the Hulu streaming service as opposed to a theatrical release (the same path followed by the newly-released Prey, the latest addition to the Predator boxset), and there is no word as to whether Weaver or any other cast members are returning, although it seems unlikely. It may also be linked to the Alien television series currently in development with showrunner Nathan Hawley, who previously found success with the television version of Fargo.

Meanwhile, Ridley Scott is also attached to direct an as yet untitled sequel to Alien: Covenant, although things have been quiet there for years, and in truth, nobody really believes we’ll ever see that one. The response to Alien: Covenant likely took care of that.

Still, the Alien franchise is a complex beast, so to speak, and stranger things have happened with regards to long in gestation film sequels, but as of 2022 the possibility of seeing Sigourney Weaver in a version of Alien 5 is as remote as ever. So it is up to Alvarez and Scott to reinvent and reinvigorate the franchise. Given that the number of not good films outweighs the number of good ones, there’s something of a challenge there…

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