Sigourney Weaver Talks 'Alien': What to Expect from Neill Blomkamp's Ellen Ripley

Science fiction superstar and incredible lady Sigourney Weaver has been the face of the Alien franchise for the past four decades, as she's already played Ellen Ripley in four movies, even if the latter two have left fans fairly disheartened, but things are changing: the actress just gave an update regarding Neill Blomkamp's take on the Ridley Scott franchise!

Earlier this week, Entertainment Weekly published a new interview with Weaver, and on it the legendary Academy Award-nominated actress opened up about the upcoming Alien 5, where she'll be reprising her role of Ripley for the first time in 20 years, since she starred in Alien: Resurrection. And it turns out Weaver has nothing but love for the project.

"It's a great story and it's satisfying to me to give this woman an ending," the actress shared. "The script itself has so much in it that's so original, but also really satisfies the, I would say, the primal needs of the aliens. It's a tribute to all of the great work that the other directors have done, in a way, but goes in a completely new direction. I hope we'll do it."

Blomkamp's project, which already has a screenplay and some bits of concept art, has been shelved until further notice, as Scott works on another timeline in the Alien universe: Alien: Covenant, the sequel to the 2012 film Prometheus, is currently filming, and it's the top priority in the franchise. There's no official release date for the fifth installment of the series, which will seemingly ignore the events of Alien 3 and Resurrection, two films the fandom isn't madly attached to.

Slash Film reports that Blomkamp, who is most famous for his breakout film District 9 plus other sci-fi endeavors like Elysium and last year's Chappie, has posted a few bits of concept art for the film showing a grown-up Newt, which seemed to confirm that the still-untitled Aliens 5 will in fact serve as a direct sequel to the first two movies, since the character died in the third installment.

Cryptically, Blomkamp has said his take on the franchise won't be undoing the stories of the third and fourth Alien movies.

It's unclear when Alien 5 will begin shooting now that the Prometheus trilogy has turned out to be the priority. Right now, Weaver is committed to the making of three more Avatar movies, while Blomkamp will be involved in The Gone World; once they've finished up those projects, we'll have more news.