5 A Bunch of Ways to Prep - Alien: Covenant

By George Rose

May 17, 2017

Surprisingly not a goofy '80s music video.

New at BOP:
Share & Save
Digg Button  
Print this column
1981 – Wait, Ridley Scott is suing the studio for withholding his portion of the Alien profits? No wonder Lucas demanded he own the rights to Star Wars. Studios suck balls. Fox moves forward with a sequel to Alien but decide to cut out O’Bannon and Scott. They want hire another nobody director (James Cameron) who hasn’t worked much in film but shows promise. But Cameron can’t finish the script because he wants Arnold Schwarzenegger to star in The Terminator, which is about to start filming. Oh, wait, Arnold wants to film Conan the Barbarian first? Okay, Cameron writes Alien 2.

1982 – Ridley Scott releases the sci-fi classic Blade Runner, proving he wasn’t a one-hit-wonder and a sci-fi legend. Fox wishes that maybe they kept Scott around a bit longer. Conan the Barbarian is released. Fox wonders if Cameron is the right choice for directing Alien 2 because the sequel script is proving to be less of a horror sci-fi movie and more of an action sci-fi film.

1983 – Fox enjoys the profits of the final Star Wars movie, Return of the Jedi. Hundreds of millions of dollars later, George Lucas has finished the trilogy he owns and leaves 20th Century Fox with nothing.

1984 – The Terminator is released and makes James Cameron a household name. Fox decides they do want him to make Alien 2 and they are tired of sitting around waiting for the sequel to get made.




Advertisement



1985 – A super adorable baby boy is born. His name is George Rose. That’s me. I’m George.

1986 – Aliens (aka Alien 2) is released and earns as much as the first film domestically but more worldwide. It becomes a profitable film for Fox, gets a few Oscar nominations/wins, and becomes referred to as one of the greatest sequels of all time. Since Cameron clearly knows how to make an action movie, Fox steals his ideas and casts Schwarzenegger in their other movie about aliens, Predator.

1987 – Predator is released and makes almost $100 million worldwide. Fox might not own a Star Wars level success story but they have some pretty decent sized franchises between Alien and Predator.

1988 – Fox realizes that Aliens was drastically different than Alien, going from horror to action. Maybe Star Wars was so successful because there was only one mind (Lucas) behind the story which made it more cohesive. They consider bringing Ridley Scott back.

1989 – Some silly writer releases a comic book called Alien vs. Predator. Since Fox owns both franchises, they decide to start work on a film that pits their two biggest aliens against each other. Scott hates this idea and decides not to do Alien 3, so production gets stalled.

Instead, they move forward on Predator 2. Schwarzenegger doesn’t want to do it, though; he would rather make a movie called Total Recall, written by the same guy that wrote the classic sci-fi film Alien.

1990 – Total Recall is released by Sony and earns over $250 million worldwide. Schwarzenegger and writer Dan O’Bannon rejoice! Predator 2 is released and earns a dismal $57 million worldwide.


Continued:       1       2       3       4       5

     


 
 

Need to contact us? E-mail a Box Office Prophet.
Thursday, April 25, 2024
© 2024 Box Office Prophets, a division of One Of Us, Inc.