Killian H. Gore - Incredible Horror Movie Facts

Alien (1979 Directed by RidleyScott)

Scriptwriter Dan OBannon was down on his luckwhen he conceived the idea for Alien.At the time he was living at Ronald Shusetts house and was desperate to nolonger be sleeping on his friends sofa. The two of them got together to writethe screenplay for Alien and weresurprised at the positive reaction it received from the studios after they sentit out. But they knew the Hollywood system well enough to know that projectscan easily fall apart, Everything had fallen through for us. Nothing had everworked, OBannon said. Even after they received their first paycheck theycontinued to be pessimistic. Fortunately sci-fi was hot in Hollywood at thetime, owing to the massive success of StarWars, and the project continued to expand, We caught this science fictionboom just right our script was on the market just a month after Star Wars was released.

OBannon has said in earlyinterviews that producers David Giler and Walter Hill only wanted to give him astory-writing credit in the finished film, claiming that they had extensivelyre-written the original screenplay. It appears that their motivation was simplyto steal the credit from rookies OBannon and Shusett. The producers clearlyhad a change of heart throughout the lengthy production process and OBannonwould be given sole writing credit with Shusett receiving co-story credit withOBannon.

Whilst shooting the classic chest-burster sequence, director RidleyScott thought the best way to get a realistic reaction from his actors was tonot tell them exactly how intense (and bloody) the effect was going to be.Actress Veronica Cartwrights (Lambert) performance perfectly captures hersurprise and horror as the gory scene unfolded before her eyes - and all overher face!

John Hurt had initially been considered for the role of Kane but ascheduling conflict meant that they had to cast actor Jon Finch instead. Hurtwas supposed to be filming Zulu Dawn(1979) in South Africa, although he was denied entry into the country when theyconfused him with actor John Heard (who was banned from South Africa for hispolitical views). The weekend that Hurt returned to London he was informed thatJon Finch had been taken seriously ill. Ridley Scott immediately got in touchwith Hurt to ask him if he wanted the part and Hurt was on the set thefollowing morning, albeit very tired!

The working title for the script was Star Beast. In footage from the makingof the movie the clapperboard can sometimes be seen to read The Alien.

The writers of the movie never intended forRipley to be female during the early stages of pre-production JohnTravolta was considered for the role.

Aliens (1986 Directed by JamesCameron)

Gordon Carroll, one of the executive producers on Aliens, says that James Camerons pitchfor the movie was as simple as walking up to a chalkboard, writing the wordalien and adding an s to which he then drew a line through to make$. Oh, and he had just made a little film called The Terminator, so that may have swung it for him!

Tip Tipping, who starred as Pvt. Crowe, was also a very wellrespected stunt performer in films such as IndianaJones and the Temple of Doom (1984), Batman(1989) and Robin Hood: Prince ofTheives (1991) as well as a couple of the Bond movies. Sadly in 1993 he wasfilming the BBC television show 999 (aboutreal-life accidents) when his parachute failed to open and he tragically plungedto his death.

Alien 3 (1992 Directed by DavidFincher)

Michael Biehn was paidmore for Alien 3 than he was for Aliens even though he doesntactually star in it! The money he received was merely for the use of hisphotograph that featured at the beginning of the movie.

Actor Charles S. Dutton,who played the inmate Dillon, was charged and convicted of the death of a manhe got into a fight with when he was 17 years old. He served seven years inprison for manslaughter and only a few months after being released he wascharged with possession of a deadly weapon and sentenced to three more years inprison. Maybe he was just getting into character for Alien 3?

With it being directorDavid Finchers debut feature film, the executives at Fox kept a very close eyeon the young director during production. It was clearly the cause of muchfriction on set. In the documentary chronicling the making of the movie, Wreckage and Rage, Fincher grabs a boommicrophone and says into it, Its amazing to me that Fox is the number onestudio in the country because theyre all such a bunch of morons. This scenehad initially been omitted from the