by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Absolutely no one listens to me. The number of people who read this blog on a daily basis is barely a rounding error for places like The New York Times. But I do know some about how to tell a good story and what audiences expect.
So, let’s talk about the Alien franchise.
The existential problem with how the franchise developed is the producers made some pretty big mistakes after Aliens. Alien and Aliens are two solid films. And, really, if they hadn’t choked about showing the xenomorphs on Earth as was teased at the end of Aliens, things would have gone really well from there.
But, alas, a number of different things happened.
One, as I understand it, Sigourney Weaver started to have such power over the franchise that it kind of warped what happened to it. Also, the little girl who played Newt simply wasn’t a kid anymore by the time the third movie was being produced. Lastly, CGI simply wasn’t where it needed to be to show what everyone wanted to see — xenomorphs consuming Earth.
Here’s how I would reboot the series with all that in mind.
First, you need to remember what the whole thing is about — Alien was a horror movie. So, you get someone like Eli Roth to direct a totally rebooted series. Give him a three picture deal to give the rebooted franchise some much-needed consistency of tone.
Then, you cast someone like Ana de Armas as the new Ripley. Give her, too, a three picture deal.
I would then map out three movies so you had a three-movie arc like in the Dark Night series of movies. I would totally reboot the entire franchise, leaving only the look and feel of the xenomorphs the same. But the point of doing this is the movies would be fucking scary and, to the extent that Alien was gory, gory.
The premise is really strong and there’s a built-in fan base that would flock to a rebooted series if you did as I suggest. Fans like me are extremely annoyed with how the Alien franchise has totally lost its way.
Come on Hollywood, you can do better.
