Last night Tempe, Arizona held the world premiere for X-Men Origins: Wolverine and all of the film's stars and creative staff were on hand to bask in the limelight including one Tom Rothman, the co-chairman of the movie studio. If you're not versed with how it works in a Hollywood studio, Rothman is the guy who's the big kahuna, the man that greenlights a movie at Fox.
IESB's Robert Sanchez smelled a good story afoot and hauled himself away from California to the Arizona climes. Low and behold, Robert got Rothman on camera and proceeded to ask him question after question about the future of the X-Men/Wolverine franchise, what James Cameron's Avatar is looking like as well, what the creative deal is with Robert Rodriguez making Predators as asking the chairman about several exclusives that IESB broke (such as a reboot of the Fantastic Four and Daredevil films.) But the new exclusive that Sanchez got confirmation from Rothman about concerned a previously unannounced idea for Alien director Ridley Scott to possibly return back to Fox to make a prequel -- not a sequel -- to his legendary horror film. Rothman basically all but confirmed Sanchez's question, even going to remark that the online reporter's sources were so good that there was no point in asking him for more information than he already had!
Scott has long kicked around the idea of returning to the Alien universe but I've always heard that the idea was to make a movie set after the events in Alien (and likely the other films in the sci-fi franchise) and never a prequel, so this is brand new information being revealed. When asked by the press the director has always hinted at revealing the backstory behind the Space Jockey, the skeletal pilot found by the Nostromo astronauts in the crashed alien spaceship. Whether that plotline would factor into whatever idea is behind this new Alien prequel idea remains a mystery for now.
One thing that seems to be certain about the Alien movie franchise is that it's dead. It's been 12 years since the release of Alien Resurrection and there has been no kind of forward momentum toward getting a fifth film made. There's been no scripts, no real interest from star Sigourney Weaver aside from the basic "Love to do it if the story was great" platitudes and I can't blame her. Where can you take the franchise anyway when the mystery behind the monster has been pretty much washed away and Ripley, the heroine of the series, has been dead and resurrected as one of the beasts in a film that wasn't well received by audiences? Perhaps a fresh start is the only road left for Fox to take if they want to make a stand-alone Alien film ever again.
Watch the video interview with Tom Rothman on IESB.
Alien/Aliens is a unique combo in my opinion, because you have a horror-movie in a sci-fi setting, then a sci-fi movie with a scary monster. As far as continuing stories, they should have stopped there.
I'm still waiting for someone to decide to make the real, honest-to-God AvP based on the original Dark Horse book........
....though I'm not holding my breath....
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The Swollen Goi...
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Posted: 15 years 6 days ago
So was the work print pretty much the movie with temp effects? Because that's the rumor. That, and that Fox is guilty of some desperately disingenuous damage control.