Director Walter Hill has confirmed his script for Alien 5 featuring the return of Sigourney Weaver's Ripley isn't happening at Disney, which is arguably the franchise's biggest missed opportunity. Hill began his career as a screenwriter for films like Sam Peckinpah's The Getaway, before breaking through as a director with The Driver, The Warriors and 48 Hrs. Hill had a solid run of movies throughout the '80s and '90s, with his next project being Western Dead For A Dollar, starring Christoph Waltz, Willem Dafoe and Rachel Brosnahan.
Hill is also a prolific producer, and he was the one who discovered the screenplay for Alien, then titled Starbeast. He didn't particularly like Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett's screenplay, but he knew Alien's infamous chestburster sequence would be incredible with the right execution. He and producing partner David Giler rewrote the script - which included making the character of Ripley female instead of male - and it became a landmark success. Hill and Giler later produced both Aliens and Alien 3, though following the disastrous production of the latter, both stepped away from future sequels.
While they're still credited on later sequels - and Michael Fassbender's Alien: Covenant androids Walter and David are named in their honor - those were in-name only credits. In 2020, it was revealed that Hill had penned an Alien 5 script with Giler - who has since passed - that would have acted as an ending for Weaver's Ripley. Speaking with SyFy Wire, he stated that it would "... 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 eventually confirmed in 2022 the movie wasn't happening as Disney - who just purchased Fox - had no interest in pursuing it. This is sad for a few reasons, not least because it could have ended Ripley's story with some dignity.
Hill Could Have Closed Out Ripley's Story With Class
While Ripley died in Alien 3, the character's last canonical appearance was the 1997 sequel Resurrection. This ended with a clone of Ripley returning to a ruined future version of Earth, but neither the movie nor its ending felt deserving of the franchise. Of the four Ripley Alien films, the Joss Whedon-penned Resurrection is easily the weakest. Numerous attempts have been made to bring back Weaver for Alien 5 in the decades that followed, with Neill Blomkamp's effort being the most high-profile. This not only would have brought back Ripley, but Michael Biehn's Hicks and Newt also, suggesting Alien 3 and 4 didn't happen.
While it held promise, Blomkamp's Alien 5 felt like a nostalgic legacy sequel to Aliens, rather than an attempt to reinvent or add something new to the series. Whatever their flaws, the Ripley films always strived to do something unique with each entry, and they all hired visionary filmmakers with unique visions for that reason. The story for Hill's Alien 5 has yet to be revealed, but it's very unlikely he would have simply reheated plot elements from the original films and would have tried to close out Ripley's story with some emotional heft.
Weaver has always praised Hill and Giler's writing for Ripley, and insisted they take a crack at writing Alien 3 because other writers made the character sound like "a p***ed off gym teacher." It's unknown if Hill planned to direct his Alien 5 script too, but he and Giler were big reasons the original movies succeeded, and having them close the book on the franchise's most iconic figure is a big missed opportunity. It's not too late for Disney to reconsider, of course, but with Fede Alvarez currently working on the next Alien installment, it won't happen anytime soon.