SAN DIEGO – Alien 3 is widely reviled by fans of the first two films, most notably for the fact that two of the survivors from James Cameron's Aliens — Michael Biehn's Corporal Hicks and Carrie Henn's Newt — were killed off in the first 10 minutes. In fact, you can count Cameron himself among the movie's detractors.
“I thought it was dumb [that Hicks and Newt were killed off],” said Cameron while doing press for Aliens' 30th anniversary at Comic-Con. “I thought it was a huge slap in the face to the fans. I mean look, [Alien 3 director David] Fincher's a friend of mine, and David is an amazing, amazing filmmaker, unquestionably. That was kind of his first big gig, and he was getting vectored around by the studio, and he dropped into the production late and they had a horrible script and they were rewriting it on the fly, and it was just a mess. I think it was a big mistake. So I certainly — had [producer Gale Ann Hurd and I] been involved, we would not have done that because we felt we earned something with the audience with those characters.”
Luckily, Hicks and Newt may get a new lease on life thanks to director Neill Blomkamp, who has a script for a prospective Alien 5 that will follow an alternate timeline in which the characters survived. And according to Cameron, who has read Blomkamp's script, it “works gangbusters.”
“He shared it with me, and I think it's a very strong script, and he can go make it tomorrow,” said Cameron, before hastening to add: “I don't know anything about the production…and I know nothing about what Ridley's doing [with Alien: Covenant].”
More to come on Aliens 30…
The Aliens 30th anniversary Blu-ray hits stores on September 13.