Movies
Here’s Why the ‘Alien’ Franchise Would Not Exist Without ‘Star Wars’
Not a Star Wars fan? Well if you’re an Alien fan, you should at least appreciate it.
Dan O’Bannon once famously said that he didn’t steal Alien from anybody – he stole it from “EVERYBODY.” Ridley Scott’s 1979 film, originally titled Star Beast, was penned by O’Bannon, who (along with co-writer Ronald Schusett) had a hell of a time selling a studio on the sci-fi horror tale. Believe it or not, there was a time when the project was completely dead in the water.
After almost making the film with Roger Corman, O’Bannon and Schusett ended up aligning with a new production company named Brandywine, which had ties to 20th Century Fox. The men behind Brandywine, Gordon Carroll, David Giler, and Walter Hill (The Warriors), famously reworked O’Bannon’s script a good deal, but 20th Century Fox just wasn’t sold on making Alien.
And then a little film called Star Wars came along in 1977.
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In the 2003 doc The Beast Within: The Making of Alien, O’Bannon and Gordon Carroll recalled just how much of an impact the success of Star Wars had on Alien getting made.
“When Star Wars came out and was the extraordinary hit that it was, suddenly science fiction became the hot genre,” said Carroll. Added O’Bannon, “They wanted to follow through on Star Wars, and they wanted to follow through fast – and the only spaceship script they had sitting on their desk was Alien.”
After Star Wars came out and was a huge success, Fox gave O’Bannon’s Alien script a green light and a budget, and Ridley Scott was soon thereafter brought on board. The rest is history.
Another interesting note here is that Ridley Scott recently credited the revival of the Star Wars franchise for reigniting his interest in making more Alien movies. “Star Wars will be a juggernaut. Why do you think I’m doing [Alien] sequels?” he said in 2015, just a month before The Force Awakens was released. It would seem that the two franchises are forever linked, and it’s rather fitting that both Alien: Covenant and Star Wars: The Last Jedi are headed our way this year – two films that certainly would not exist is not for the 1977 success of Star Wars.
Just goes to show how hugely influential a single film can be.
Fede Alvarez’s (Evil Dead, Don’t Breathe) Alien: Romulus will be unleashed in theaters nationwide on August 16, and Entertainment Weekly brings us two new images today.
The first image you’ll find below gives us another fresh look at the film’s Xenomorph, with Alvarez promising the outlet that it’s the most H.R. Giger-faithful Xenomorph of them all.
Entertainment Weekly writes, “… Alvarez promises [the Xenomorph’s design] is closer to H.R. Giger’s original creation than any other iteration.” The late H.R. Giger was of course integral to Ridley Scott’s Alien, designing the iconic monster the franchise is centered on.
The other image you’ll find below gives us a look at two of the human characters from Alien: Romulus, Archie Renaux’s Tyler and Cailee Spaeny’s heroine Rain Carradine.
Head over to Entertainment Weekly for their full preview of the upcoming film.
Here’s the full official plot synopsis for Alvarez’s Alien: Romulus, which comes in the wake of Disney reviving the Predator franchise in spectacular fashion with last year’s Prey…
“While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe.”
Cailee Spaeny (The Craft: Legacy, Pacific Rim Uprising) leads the cast alongside Isabela Merced, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Spike Fearn and Aileen Wu.
Alien: Romulus takes place in between the first two films. It’s been described as “an original standalone feature,” one that “will focus on a group of young people on a distant world.”
Fede Alvarez co-wrote the script with Rodo Sayagues (Evil Dead). Ridley Scott is on board as producer for the film, the first movie in the franchise to be released by Disney.
Xenomorph in ‘Alien: Romulus’. 20TH CENTURY STUDIOS
(L-R): Archie Renaux as Tyler and Cailee Spaeny as Rain Carradine in ‘Alien: Romulus.’. 20TH CENTURY STUDIOS
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