San Diego: Sigourney Weaver apparently isn’t finished fighting aliens.
The original star of the Alien film franchise says she’s hopeful about reprising her role as tough-as-nails survivor Ellen Ripley in another sequel.
Weaver told the Comic-Con crowd during a Saturday panel celebrating the 30th anniversary of the sci-fi sequel Aliens that District 9 filmmaker Neill Blomkamp pitched her an idea for another instalment when they were working together on his 2015 film Chappie.
“Four months later, I got a script that was so amazing and gives the fans everything they are looking for — plus innovates in a lot of ways,” Weaver said.
The actress, who will soon begin production on filmmaker James Cameron’s Avatar sequels, isn’t sure when they would work on the project. Alien director Ridley Scott is currently crafting a Prometheus sequel titled Alien: Covenant.
“[Blomkamp] has work to do, and I have work to do,” Weaver said. “I am hoping when we finish those jobs, we will circle back and start to do it.”
Weaver last portrayed Ripley on screen in the 1997 sequel Alien Resurrection, the fourth film in the series that ended with a clone of Ripley arriving on Earth. (The original Ripley sacrificed herself at the conclusion of 1992’s Aliens 3)
Weaver told 6,500 fans at San Diego Comic-International that she wasn’t interested in an Earth-set sequel because she thought “Earth was boring.”
Weaver was joined on the Aliens anniversary panel by director James Cameron, producer Gale Anne Hurd and co-stars Bill Paxton, Lance Henriksen, Paul Reiser, Michael Biehn and Carrie Henn, where they were surprised by a fan proposing to his girlfriend.
Cameron and Weaver were swapping nostalgia and behind-the-scenes anecdotes when the man got down on one knee during the audience Q&A section and popped the question.
The lucky lady said yes, prompting Cameron, 61, to remark: “May you be happy and have many spawn.”
Weaver made her name — and received an Oscar nomination — for playing Ripley, pop culture icon widely viewed as one of the most significant female protagonists in cinema history.
But the actress admitted to the Hall H audience she can’t bear to watch Hurd’s hit horror series The Walking Dead.
Carrie Henn, who played young survivor Rebecca “Newt” Jorden in her only film role and is now a fourth-grade teacher, said students’ parents show up with DVDs for her to sign.
