By Ridley Scott’s “Alien” changed the face of cinema and crafted the still ultimate king film of the sci-fi horror genre. James Cameron’s “Aliens” remains one of the quintessential examples of a sequel done right and every bit a classic like its predecessor.
Then there’s David Fincher’s “Alien 3”. The first film of the master auteur is mostly talked about as the textbook example of a troubled production with studio interference compromising the film and franchise on nearly every level.
As time has passed there’s an appreciation for the parts of the movie that do work, best exemplified in the ‘Producer’s Cut’ of the film, but even so Fincher himself has since disowned the film and the franchise has never achieved the heights of the first two again.
This week, ahead of her awards recognition at the Venice Film Festival, the film’s leading lady, Sigourney Weaver, reflected on the film and said she could feel the lack of studio support that the young Fincher received when making the film. She tells Deadline:
“Well, I could feel that David had to get on the phone and fight every day for us to shoot what he wanted to the next day. And I’m sorry that he didn’t get a chance to make the script his own before we started.
That makes filmmaking very difficult. I recall that Vincent Ward’s original script had been about monks in a monastery and Ripley was in a coma for half of it. So, I keenly felt the lack of studio support.
That was a transition moment where studios stopped being about ‘let’s make great films’ and started being about ‘let’s not lose money.’
They had the great idea to put David Fincher aboard for his first film, but then not to support the guy was very idiotic. It helped shooting in England so we could get on with things to an extent.
I heard recently that David has disowned the project and I’m sorry about that because I loved working with him, and I think we made a good film. I’m glad he got a chance to do his version. It was a great ensemble.”
Though it was hardly the last rough patch for the franchise, it is currently in better shape with the upcoming FX series “Alien: Earth” and the currently in cinemas “Alien: Romulus”. The latter has earned over $227 million worldwide and has become Hollywood’s second-biggest film of the year at the mainland China box office with $73.7 million after ten days.
Weaver herself is currently filming “The Mandalorian and Grogu” movie that is in production in the UK and tells the outlet she “got to meet Grogu for the first time the other day”.
The post Weaver Reflects On “Alien 3” Struggles appeared first on Dark Horizons.
