Ridley Scott Wants Ripley in Alien Prequel

Alien: Covenant director Ridley Scott said in response to a fan question that Sigourney Weaver's original Alien series character Ripley could still make an appearance in the prequels, possibly with the help of de-aging CGI. Scott also addressed the idea that Ripley could turn out to be related to another character who has already been introduced in the prequels, or is waiting to be introduced.

After decades away from the Alien franchise, Ridley Scott took back creative control of the series with the 2012 film Prometheus, a prequel that explored a mysterious race of beings called Engineers who were revealed to be both the creators and potential destroyers of humanity. Prometheus introduced the android character David (Michael Fassbender), whose story was continued in this summer's box office disappointment Alien: Covenant. In the latest film, we learned that David's experiments with generating lifeforms resulted in the creation of the Xenomorph from the original Alien movies (after assuming all along it was the God-like Engineers who first brought that particularly nasty species into being).

In an interview segment shared by Instagram user luisnostromo, Scott addresses a question about Sigourney Weaver possibly returning to play Ripley and gives out tons of details about his future plans regarding the series. In addition to teasing Ripley's return with some CGI assistance, Scott tosses off a revelation about Ripley's lineage. He also addresses the idea that the new Alien movies will at some point tie in directly with the original 1979 movie.

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"We’re heading toward the back end of the first Alien so [using CG] may be feasible. I don’t think it’ll... but Ripley’s going to be somebody’s daughter. Obviously. We’re coming in from the back end. The time constraints, of what’s the time between this film, where we leave David going off heading for that colony, I think you’re probably two films out from even considering her."

Scott indicates that two more films would have to elapse before Ripley could make an appearance in the new line of Alien movies. Scott giving himself that many more movies to play with seems somewhat optimistic after the box office performance of Alien: Covenant, which has grossed a meager $73 million domestically and a less-than-stellar $232 million worldwide. At this point even one more Alien movie seems like it is far from a done deal, let alone two or three.

At the end of Alien: Covenant, David packed Katherine Waterston and Danny McBride into hypersleep pods and headed off for the original planet the colony ship was bound for before it detoured to the Engineer home world (if indeed the planet we saw even was the Engineers' home world and not an outpost as theorized by Prometheus writer Damon Lindelof). The implication we were left with was that David planned to continue his experiments using Xenomorph embryos and the hundreds of hibernating colonists on the ship, as well as Waterston and McBride. From Scott's new remarks, we can infer that somehow or another -- over the course of several more movies -- David's tinkering with life leads to the creation of the Xenomorph eggs that were discovered in the original Alien by Ripley and the crew of the Nostromo.

We also know that Scott plans for Ripley to be the progeny of a character from the prequels, possibly the Waterston character. At any event, it seems like we're years away from Scott finally linking the new films to the original, assuming there is someone willing to put up the money for Scott to make that happen.