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SYFY WIRE Alien

Alien producer Walter Hill breaks silence on fifth movie, lobbies for Sigourney Weaver to reprise Ripley

By Josh Weiss
Sigourney Weaver Aliens

Sigourney Weaver's recent comments about being sent a 50-page Alien 5 treatment from longtime franchise producer Walter Hill were interesting, but it didn't really sound like a fifth Alien movie would ever become of it. Well, it still may not, but Hill's retort does leave some room for hope, at least in the court of public opinion.

Today, Hill's production company revealed to SYFY WIRE not just that the treatment exists, but also that he wrote it alongside fellow OG Alien producer David Giler. And this isn't some long-stagnant project that's just now picking up steam. No, the latest draft is dated from March of this year.

Let's not get too ahead of ourselves, though. Everything hinges on an ambivalent Weaver making the call on whether she'll reprise the iconic role of Ellen Ripley.

"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 SYFY WIRE.

Hill and Giler's company, Brandywine Productions, released an image of the treatment's title page, which bears the series' famous tagline, "In space no one can hear you scream," with the spine-tingling addition of "In space no one can hear you dream." There are also two historical quotes at the bottom, one from Edgar Allan Poe and one from William Tecumseh Sherman.

See for yourself:

Alien 5 treatment

"Dreams within dreams"? "War is hell"? Could it be possible that Alien 5 (or V, if you prefer) is about a conflict inside Ripley's mind? Is that too far-fetched? Are we asking too many questions? Maybe, but if Hill and Giler are looking to tell some sort of Inception-y story with xenomorphs, we're here for it.

We'll look directly into that strange, pulsating egg any day.