Last Sunday, Sigourney Weaver said some not so nice (but arguably justifiable) things about Alien vs. Predator, including that she asked for her character to be killed in Alien 3 when she heard the studio was making Alien vs. Predator. Peter Briggs, the original writer of the Alien vs. Predator screenplay, has now called shenanigans on this chronology of events during an email exchange with Bloody Disgusting.
Briggs — who co-wrote Hellboy with Guillermo del Toro and is currently working on directing Panzer 88 — wasn’t credited with the final version of the Alien vs. Predator script, but he did create the story as a writing sample, his first job with Fox. And here’s where Briggs takes issue with Sigourney Weaver’s “latest salvo” about his story. He wrote the spec script in the summer of 1991, he says, and Alien 3 started principal photography several months before then, in January of 1991. To be fair, there was a short-lived Alien vs. Predator comic book at Dark Horse which started its run in July of 1990, so it’s possible that’s what Weaver had heard about.
Anyway, let’s get right to the sick burns.
When I hear Sigourney Weaver recounting her killing off Ripley in Alien 3 because she’d heard Fox were talking about doing Alien vs Predator, despite the fact our project was first spoken about and initiated well over a year […] after her movie had gone into active production, I really have to roll my eyes at her claims.
I love Alien 3. Well; I didn’t on its theatrical release, but I find the recent extended DVD recut even more watchable than Aliens. I’ll also be honest that I’m less-than-wild about the two Alien vs Predator movies (particularly Requiem, about which less said the better) But I do wish Sigourney Weaver would stop beating on Alien vs Predator as her pet piñata in “ruining” the Alien franchise, and acknowledge that two standalone Alien movies she was actively involved with unfortunately managed that first, all on their own.
Man, this writer-versus-actor ruckus is getting salty. But, safe to say, whoever wins, we lose.
(Via Bloody Disgusting)
