The Venice Film Festival is in full swing, and while films planned for release or seeking distribution are being screened, it’s usually also a great time for creatives all over the world to meet and start building future projects. A once prominent name in showbiz who is debuting a brand new film is Walter Hill. Hill’s new western, Dead for a Dollar, starring Christoph Waltz and Willem Dafoe will be his first film in six years.
Hill sat down with The Hollywood Reporter in Venice while promoting his new movie. He has been responsible for some of the most culturally influential movies of the last century, and one film of note is the sci-fi horror, Alien. Hill has been a producer on all Alien films, and THR asks if he ever plans to meet with Sigourney Weaver, who is also in Venice for a screening of her own film, Master Gardner, for a possible pitch session for another Alien chapter in the franchise.
Hill explains that this wouldn’t be the first time he would try to get a fifth entry going,
We took a shot at that a couple of years back with Sigourney. But that was back when Aliens was still at Fox. The people at Disney, who now control Aliens, have expressed no interest in going down that road. I had an idea for a good story with the Ripley character and Sigourney. But I do hope to see her in Venice.”
Fox originally looked into plans for an Alien 5 back in 2015 when Neill Blomkamp posted pictures of concept art he made for his idea of an Alien sequel that would bring back Ripley and Hicks despite both being killed off in Alien 3. The concept art garnered interest from fans who yearned to see their return and seek some retribution from the movie that they felt did the characters wrong. That project was scrapped in favor of Ridley Scott’s prequel, Alien: Covenant.
Dead for a Dollar will premiere at the Venice Film Festival on September 6 before hitting theaters on September 30.
What do you think? Would you like to see an Alien 5?