It’s helpful when a film’s title describes its contents – Jaws had some jaws in it, Michael Clayton contained a man called Michael Clayton and Kindergarten Cop was famous for featuring those two exact things.

And that theory works beautifully with the Alien series. Alien had an alien in it, Aliens had more than one alien in it, Alien 3 was the third film in the franchise and Alien: Resurrection was a film about some aliens that featured a resurrection as a key plot point.

Which brings us to Alien 5. Which might be happening. Without any aliens in it. Whoops.
Although Sigourney Weaver is possibly most famous for her role as Ripley in the Alien franchise, she doesn’t need it to make a living. She’s been in plenty of other films, from that crappy movie about the village to the crappy movie about the vantage point to, um…

OK, look, perhaps Sigourney Weaver does need the Alien franchise a bit. But that’s just tough luck because, between the two Alien Vs Predator movies that have been released in recent years, the aliens in question now couldn’t be less scary if they came in big clown shoes and spinny bow-ties and constantly did goofy renditions the Soulja Boy dance at 90-second intervals.

So what’s Sigourney Weaver to do? On the one hand her old action movie contemporaries like Sylvester Stallone and Harrison Ford are revisiting old glories in return for piles of cash, but on the other she knows that making another Alien movie would essentially make her Michelle Dessler from 24’s sloppy seconds. If only there was a third way – a way that made little to no sense on any level but would somehow ensure that Sigourney Weaver had enough money for that nice new speedboat she’s had her eye on.

Wait a minute, there is! Apparently Sigourney has been talking to Ridley Scott about the possibility of making Alien 5. And, here’s the kicker, it doesn’t look as if it’ll have any aliens in it. Filmstalker quotes:

“Both of us feel a kind of commitment to that woman. He’s as much responsible for who she is as I am. We’d have to go back to the drawing board on [the alien]. Ridley said that right away when we first talked about [a fifth film]. What we’re interested in is taking the character of Ripley and seeing what other science fiction story we can tell about someone who has lived several lives.”

You see? Ripley’s life doesn’t revolve completely around her incident with the aliens, so it stands to reason that you could make Alien 5 about other adventures that she’s been on. Like when she returned to Earth and took up tapestry, for example, or the time she thought she saw a fox going through her bins but actually it was just next door’s cat. Any of these scenarios would make a perfectly good film.

Of course, there is one perfectly good option for Alien 5 here that nobody seems to have noticed. Remember in Alien: Resurrection where we saw the seven hideous variously-deformed Ripley mutant clones? Let’s make Alien 5 about them! It would be excellent – not only would it give Sigourney Weaver the chance to play seven characters at once, giving her the chance to show off her acting ability, but it’d probably be the only chance we’d get to see a film about seven deformed mutant ladies and their hilarious plan to start a Salvation Army brass band much to the horror of the local parish council. It’d be a hoot. A hoot!

Now, look, we share your concern here – an Alien 5 that hasn’t got any aliens in it does sound almost unstoppably awful. But don’t forget – Ridley Scott sounds as if he’s heavily involved in the development process of the movie, so Alien 5 could be the movie that takes the series back to its roots.

Or, given that the next two films that Ridley Scott wants to make are a version of Robin Hood where Russell Crowe plays everyone and an actual movie adaptation of the bloody Monopoly boardgame, the whole thing is going to stink so badly that everyone who goes to see it will need to get their brain fumigated. But let’s not think about that option too much. It’ll just make us want to cry.

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