Disney talks new Alien movie with surprise sci-fi star return – fuelled by Disney+ success story

Bringing the Alien franchise to the small screen could have gone so badly, but Disney+ / Hulu's Alien: Earth is so respectful to Ridley Scott's 1979 masterpiece that it not only worked, it achieved a 94% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

That should ensure a second season, although we're still yet to hear confirmation. It also seems to have kickstarted the Alien movie franchise back into familiar territory. And its most important character might be on the cards for a comeback.

Sigourney Weaver has recently revealed that she's interested in reprising her role as Ellen Ripley in a new film.

Speaking during the recent New York Comic Con (via The Hollywood Reporter), she said that the first 50 pages of a draft script have given her food for thought: "Walter Hill is a very good friend of mine, and he wrote 50 pages where Ripley would be now, and they are quite extraordinary. I don’t know if it’s going to happen, but I have had a meeting with Fox, Disney, or whoever it is now," Weaver explained.

"I said I have never felt the need. I was always like, ‘Let her rest, let her recover.’ But what Walter has written seems so true to me."

The prospect of working with Hill on a new Ripley-lead Alien movie seems to be more tangible than ever before: "I think it’s a very strong first 50 pages, and I’m thinking about working with Walter to see what the rest of the story would be," she added.

A new Alien movie starring Sigourney Weaver, at last

Whether this comes to fruition is up to the Disney gods, it seems. There's certainly interest from Weaver, who has previously suggested that Alien Resurrection was her last.

In many ways, while Alien 3 turns out not to be as bad as I thought on its release in the 90s (possibly thanks to the Assembly Cut) and Alien Resurrection has its moments, nothing has matched Ripley's energy in the original and James Cameron's sequel, Aliens. It'd be great to see her bow out in a potentially better film.

Walter Hill has also helped steward the series since Scott's first movie, so if Weaver thinks his new vision is correct, there's no reason to think otherwise.

Here's hoping.