ALIEN Remake Coming Our Way -- from producer Ridley Scott?

[AndyDursin]

...here we go again and again, right?

Ridley Scott is one of the producers. I certainly hope this isn't a straight remake...

I know I defend (some) remakes, but there are those occasions that cause me to vomit a little in my mouth and then brush my teeth for hours trying to get the taste out. I just got back from spending an hour in the bathroom and no matter how hard I brushed, how much toothpaste I used, or how much mouthwash I swished, the taste just wouldn't go away. Alien is getting the ol' reboot treatment, courtesy of the fine folks at 20th Century Fox. Read on for the skinny.

Update (12:07am, May 28) - We just heard from a separate reliable source that Fox is possibly working on an origins story, as opposed to a straight-up remake. Still...

In January we broke the news that Robert Rodriguez's Troublemaker Studios would be producing a reboot of Predator for 20th Century Fox. Our regular tipster was proven correct once again as the story was confirmed in April. Our tipster even scooped us on who would be penning the remake, now titled Predators.

So Mr. Anonymous is back again. And being that 20th Century Fox is remaking Predator, it doesn't surprise me at all that Fox is also going back to their catalog for a reboot of Ridley Scott's Alien.

What our tipster informed us is that - opposite the Predator situation - the plan is to stick with the original concept of only one alien on the ship.

Michael Costigan, Ridley Scott and even Tony Scott are all on board to produce and have tapped Carl Rinsch to get beyond the camera and bring a new Ripley to the big screen.

Who is Carl Rinsch? I'm being told he's a commercial/music video director and does work for Scott Free Productions, who is also producing the remake.

In the original, the terror begins when the crew of a spaceship investigates a transmission from a desolate planet, and discovers a life form that is perfectly evolved to annihilate mankind. One by one, each crew member is slain until only Ripley is left, leading to an explosive conclusion that sets the stage for its stunning sequel, Aliens (my favorite film of all-time).

We'll keep you posted on any updates, but that's what we got for you this evening. Remember to take it as rumor until confirmed as many projects change through the course of development.


http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/16328

[Eric W.]

Another reboot?

Hollywood really has completely run out of original ideas.

[mkaroly]

If it was an origins story, I'd be up for that. One needn't cast a Ripley-like character since we get to find out about the Alien homeworld and the derelict space-craft that Ripley and her crew eventually find in the first movie. However, a "reboot" or "remake" of the original series is a terrible mistake. Funny that Fox wants to do that- they must be hard up for money.

Is it any wonder I rarely go to a movie theater anymore with news like this? I'm looking forward to the announcement that they are going to remake (or reboot) CITIZEN KANE...lol...that's where all this is eventually heading.

[Paul MacLean]

Gee, isn't it about time they remade Gladiator? I mean that thing's almost ten years old!

[Eric W.]

Gee, isn't it about time they remade Gladiator? I mean that thing's almost ten years old!

Bite your tongue.



And yes, mkaroly, I share your fear with growing doom and expectation: You can almost feel that Citizen Kane remake/reboot coming can't you?

[AndyDursin]

I'm so sick of the term "re-boot." Let's call it what it is: either a sequel, a prequel, or a remake.

It's possible this is actually a sequel of some kind, just with new characters (so I guess it's a "reboot"? lol).

That'd be a lot more interesting than a remake. I'd be surprised if Ridley Scott himself were involved with a straight remake of one of his films. Hopefully it's just a new ALIEN movie, which wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

[Monterey Jack]

I'd prefer a proper sequel to Cameron's Aliens with Newt and Hicks still alive. Just adapt the excellent Dark Horse comics from the late 80's/early 90's.

[AndyDursin]

I'd prefer a proper sequel to Cameron's Aliens with Newt and Hicks still alive. Just adapt the excellent Dark Horse comics from the late 80's/early 90's.

yeah me too. Just pretend 3 and 4 never happened. Would anyone actually care?

[mkaroly]

I'd prefer a proper sequel to Cameron's Aliens with Newt and Hicks still alive. Just adapt the excellent Dark Horse comics from the late 80's/early 90's.

yeah me too. Just pretend 3 and 4 never happened. Would anyone actually care?

Lol...actually, I'll chime in and say that I would dislike a film being made picking things up at the end of ALIENS that pretended as if ALIEN 3 never happened. However, if they did a story in which Ripley's space vessel hit a rift in the time-space continuum, and she and Newt and Hicks survived, I would be able to go along with it.

ALIEN 4 is completely expendable.

[Monterey Jack]

If it weren't for the David Fincher cult, would anyone remember Alien 3 as anything other than the dreary, franchise-ruining misstep it was? It's a good-looking film and it even has a few tense scenes, but man, what a horrible way to take the plotline from Cameron's film! Imagine Return Of The Jedi revealing that Han Solo and Chewbacca died in-between films during the opening title crawl. Killing Hicks and especially Newt was bad enough, but doing it off-screen and with no emotional bearing on the plot whatsoever was just plain cruel.

[Eric Paddon]

I think if one wants to pretend that bad sequels never happened, they can do so. Heck, as far as I'm concerned there was no "Jaws 3" or "Jaws: The Revenge" and Spock is still dead and there never were any films after WOK!

But to get back to the main point, I agree that enough is enough with rebooting, remaking, sequelitis etc.

[AndyDursin]

If it weren't for the David Fincher cult, would anyone remember Alien 3 as anything other than the dreary, franchise-ruining misstep it was? It's a good-looking film and it even has a few tense scenes, but man, what a horrible way to take the plotline from Cameron's film! Imagine Return Of The Jedi revealing that Han Solo and Chewbacca died in-between films during the opening title crawl. Killing Hicks and especially Newt was bad enough, but doing it off-screen and with no emotional bearing on the plot whatsoever was just plain cruel.

I'm with you on all of those fronts. That movie isn't in the least scary, has no interesting supporting characters (they kill off the one they actually bother to develop!), and basically gives the middle finger to anyone who liked ALIENS. Some thought the latter move was brilliant -- I thought it was boneheaded. The movie is a mess, and it wasn't Fincher's fault, but it's a misfire on nearly every level for me.

But we've had the argument on ALIEN 3 before so I'd rather not hash that up again...

My ideal sequel is Newt waking up from decades in hypersleep in the form of, say, Sarah Michelle Gellar and the movie working from there. Yes, I'm crazy. But I'd buy it!

[JSWalsh]

I have to laugh whenever I read about Alien 3 only being liked because of the "Fincher cult"--I loved it from the first time I saw it, and went into the theater thinking "Who's this Fincher nobody?" I've also disliked most of what he's made since.

What's really amusing is how some people get so ANNOYED that other people just like something they don't, and for REASONS they don't.

If they do go the reboot route, the only problem is that they'll be making the series more like Cameron's hugely overrated ALIENS--a comic book compared to Fincher's dark painting--which I enjoyed very much at the time and then grew out of, as opposed to ALIEN 3, which still fascinates. But I completely understand why my opinion is the minority and couldn't care less--it's baffling how many Cameron fans are ticked off at Alien 3. The reason seems to be that Hicks and Newt die, as if those characters had any juice left in them. What more do we get out of them, more shooting, more "Come on let's go, mommy"?

SF fans are always bitching about movies that don't take risks, that don't try to be different, but they love the same-old, same-old--look at the incessant talk about the umpteenth regurgitation of STAR TREK and you see where SF fans really live--in their childhoods. That's their real gripe against Fincher--he moved on and tried to return the series to its grim origins. Can't have that, we need more shootouts!

[Monterey Jack]

My ideal sequel is Newt waking up from decades in hypersleep in the form of, say, Sarah Michelle Gellar and the movie working from there. Yes, I'm crazy. But I'd buy it!

That's basically what they did with the Dark Horse comics...they picked up roughly 10 years after Aliens, with Hicks a scarred, burned-out survivor and a teenage Newt wracked with nightmares and confined to a mental institution. Hell, Ripley didn't even appear until the last page of the second miniseries! Of course, the first three miniseries were so logistically vast (imagine Stephen King's The Stand with aliens) that they'd never do them justice with a single movie, but I much prefer reading those comics to watching the third and fourth movies (at least the fourth was kinda fun for about an hour before that awful "Newborn" alien popped up and the whole thing went down the tubes). If ever a movie series needed to "re-set" it's narrative and start afresh, it's the Alien series.

[Monterey Jack]

it's baffling how many Cameron fans are ticked off at Alien 3. The reason seems to be that Hicks and Newt die, as if those characters had any juice left in them. What more do we get out of them, more shooting, more "Come on let's go, mommy"?

Because when you've built up a nuclear family (literally) out of Ripley, Newt and Hicks, asked the audience to care about the three...then arbitrarilly kill off two of them in the opening credits of the third movie, that's pretty much an insult. It's like when Michelle Dessler and Tony Almeida were killed (before Tony's zombie ressurection in season seven ) in season five of 24. We spent the better part of the previous three seasons depicting the flourishing relationship between her and Tony, had them leave CTU to make a new life for themselves, then brought both back...just to kill them off within five minutes? Why? They could have just had those characters off the show for a season or two, then brought them back at an opportune time. But no, both had to be offed for cheap "shock" value. Yeah, stuff like that happens in real life, but movies deserve plot arcs that build to a catharsis, something. Imagine Frodo getting killed in the first five minutes of Return Of The King. Imagine Indiana Jones getting squished by a boulder in the opening cene of Last Crusade.