As we go into our second “What Ifs?” column exploring never-released movies that made it to some point along the production process, I thought it’d be interesting, if a bit painful, to dip into the Aliens franchise. To date, there are five mainline movies, two spin-offs with the Predator franchise, and two prequels — all varying in quality from top-of-the-class to awful.

But if history had gone different, we would’ve had two very different entries that might have turned out sequels that had great potential to be fan favorites and solid continuations of the story. Let’s take a look at these, starting with…

William Gibson’s Alien III

Following the smash success of 1986’s Aliens, cyberpunk author William Gibson aimed to craft the next entry with a new script for a film called Alien III. This had nothing to do with what would eventually become David Fincher’s divisive third entry but instead served as a largely Ellen Ripley-free adventure starring Hicks and Bishop.

The proposed screenplay picks right up on the ending of the second film by having the Sulaco drift off course and end up at a space station called Anchorpoint. There, the company starts experimenting with the xenomorph remnants from Bishop’s torso, while Hicks finds a new job, Ripley is left in hypersleep, Newt leaves to go to Earth, and Bishop is rebuilt.

The experiments result in an airborne contagion that transforms humans into xenomorphs, prompting a mass outbreak. Thus ensues a scramble to blow up the station and escape to fight another day. There’s also some Cold War USA/USSR-style tensions between two factions in that area, and Ripley is ejected from the station to presumably star in Alien IV.

Now, there are always tons of unproduced scripts that float around Hollywood, so while Gibson is a notable name to us geeks, his script was just one of a sea of them floating out there. So since it didn’t get picked up to be made into a film, why include it here?

It’s because Gibson’s script kind of became the unofficial true sequel to Aliens and was made into everything short of a movie. The fun began in 2018, when Dark Horse Comics created a five-part series that went through Gibson’s now thrice-refined screenplay.

That was followed by an Audible Original audio drama of the script in 2019 with Aliens co-stars Michael Biehn and Lance Henriksen reprising their roles as Hicks and Bishop.

Finally, a full novelization of Gibson’s screenplay was written by Johnnie Christmas and published in 2021, further cementing this story’s legitimacy in the franchise.

If nothing else, it presents a tempting alternative to anyone who hated the ’90s Alien 3. After all, it’s up to you what canon you think is official or not, so why not pick a timeline where Hicks, Bishop, Newt, and Ripley all survived and had further adventures?

Neil Blomkamp’s Alien 5

If that last one elicited noises of mild interest, then this one creates big shuddering sighs of disappointment from fans. In early 2015, director Neil Blomkamp (District 9) and 20th Century Fox announced that work had begun on a fifth installment of the mainline Aliens series.

As details for this film were revealed, excitement began to bloom. Alien 5 (sometimes called Alien Awakening or Alien Xeno) would be a sequel to the first two movies while ignoring all the rest. Taking place three decades after Aliens, this film would feature an older Ripley, Hicks, Newt, and Bishop, with Newt taking a much greater role as an adult.

Gobs of concept art for Alien 5 came out, giving fans an idea of the tone, themes, and unique horrors this project contained. Through it and some interviews and comments by Blomkamp, some semblance of the plot could be pieced together.

Taking place in both a Weyland-Yutani company building and an offshore rig of some kind, we find out that the company brought the derelict ship from LV-426 to Earth and are running experiments upon the xenomorphs. This is to seize upon the creatures’ potential for weaponization, including a remote-controlled alien and an alien-styled pistol that Hicks sports.

The concept art does indicate more action and high-powered weapons, including Ripley with one of those huge marine guns and an android snapping necks. There’s even a piece of art featuring Ripley suiting up inside a xenomorph exoskeleton to fight a creature. There also would be a new type of alien, a kind of snake creature that could dig inside a body to lay multiple spawn.

Early production for Alien 5 began with many of the principals on board for the sequel, due in 2017 or 2018. However, by the fall of 2015, Blomkamp confirmed that the entire project was put on hold, which was then officially cancelled by Fox around 2017 in favor of making Alien Covenant.

While the Alien series continues to this day, most recently with Romulus, the death of Blomkamp’s vision is aggravating not only due to how cool it looked but because it probably represented the last chance to retcon the death of Hicks/Newt/Ripley and put their story on a different trajectory. Personally, I would’ve loved to have seen Newt come back as an adult, especially after watching Carrie Henn talk fondly of the role in Search of Tomorrow documentary.