While the third and fourth installments both have their fans, there was no way to go but down for the Alien franchise after the first two instantly established themselves as classics in their own right.
Ridley Scott’s original was a chilling and atmospheric haunted house horror in space, while James Cameron delivered a spectacular war epic with more than a few Vietnam parables lurking under the surface. The projects couldn’t have been more different in terms of execution, but both endure as a pair of the greatest sci-fi movies ever made.
David Fincher’s Alien 3 and follow-up Resurrection, meanwhile, didn’t perform to Fox’s expectations from either a critical or commercial perspective, forcing the studio back to the drawing board. During this time, Cameron and Scott got together and started bouncing story ideas around, and the prospect of the A-list duo collaborating on a new project was a mouth-watering possibility for fans.
However, once Fox decided to monetize two cash cows at once by shifting the focus onto Alien vs. Predator, Cameron immediately gave up on his concept and blasted the boardroom for the decision, likening it to Universal’s hokey crossovers from the 1940s and 50s. An interview that the Terminator creator did around the time that he was still involved has resurfaced this week, though, and in it, the filmmaker reveals he was considering parachuting Arnold Schwarzenegger into Alien 5 to team up with Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley.
Given how much he hated the thought of Alien vs. Predator, the action icon wouldn’t have been showing up as Dutch, but that doesn’t mean it’s not an awesome idea in theory. Sadly, we never got to see Schwarzenegger and Ripley teaming up, but it’s not as if we’ve seen the last of the Xenomorphs by any stretch of the imagination.