James Cameron has made himself a reputation for getting what he wants when it comes to his movies, whether it is the epic runtime of Avatar, or, it seems, his leading lady in Aliens. According to the director he was more than willing to walk away from his action-packed follow-up to Ridley Scott’s Alien if Sigourney Weaver had not signed on to reprise her role as Ellen Ripley.

While it seems now like the idea of Aliens not continuing the story of Ripley was never going to be considered, it appears that Cameron felt that to be true from the start. The movie has a near-perfect rating on Rotten Tomatoes and still stands up as one of the greatest action movies and greatest sequels of all time. Being the second step of the most iconic sci-fi franchise, it is almost impossible to imagine it might not have happened. In his interview with GQ, Cameron explained how it could have all been different if Weaver had not been on board the movie. He said:

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Of course, that is not how the story ended, and in the end, everything worked out for the good of everyone – especially cinema audiences who have been invested in the Alien franchise ever since.

“They had assured me that they had [Weaver] under an option for a sequel option. And so I went off and wrote this thing, [like], ‘Okay, I’m gonna get to work with Sigourney. This will be cool.’ I go off and write for six months, and lo and behold, no option. They haven’t even talked to her. So now it’s up to me to land Sigourney, to talk her into doing this film. I don’t know her from a stranger on the street. So I call her up and send her the script, and she agrees to meet with me. Everything I had done in preparation for this film, she could shoot it all down. She had been really taken by the story, but then her agents got in and asked for the moon and the studio said no way. Then the whole thing fell apart again. Gale and I said fuck all y’all, we’re going to get married in Hawaii and its all off and we just walked away.”

What Will Disney Do With the Alien Franchise?

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There have been several projects proposed for the Alien franchise since it was acquired by Disney as part of its merger with Fox. While there have been talks of a fifth movie in the original Alien continuity that have come and gone, as well as a further expansion of Ridley Scott’s Prometheus prequels, it seems that a new TV series and a recently announced movie are now the future of the franchise.

The latest report is that Fede Alvarez will be directing a new Alien film with Cailee Spaeny in talks to star. This will be in addition to the FX prequel series currently being worked on by Noah Hawley, which has been said to bring the Xenomorphs to Earth. There are currently no dates set for either project to be released yet, but following the huge reception Predator prequel Prey received, everyone has high expectations of the next Alien projects to arrive.