Alien 3 - Development

Development

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Originally Brandywine Productions was approached by 20th Century Fox to create two more sequels. After going through several ideas, David Giler and Walter Hill, the film series producers, "settled upon a complex two-part story that offered the underhanded Weyland-Yutani Corporation facing off with a militarily aggressive culture of humans whose rigid socialist ideology has caused them to separate from Earth's society." Sigourney Weaver (Ripley) would only make a cameo appearance in the third film, with the lead role going to Michael Biehn's Corporal Hicks from Aliens. Aliens 4 would see the return of Ripley "in an epic battle with alien warriors mass produced by the expatriated Earthlings." Weaver in particular liked the Cold War metaphor and agreed to the smaller role.

"I felt that Ripley was going to become a burden to the story ... There are only so many aspects to that character you can do."

Sigourney Weaver, concerning the future of Ripley.

Weaver also agreed on being removed because she did not like the studio changes to Aliens, which removed scenes of Ripley's backstory that she considered crucial. Although 20th Century Fox were skeptical about the idea, they agreed to finance the development of the story, but asked that Hill and Giler attempt to get Ridley Scott to direct Alien 3. They also asked that the two films be shot back to back to lessen the production costs. However this proved to be difficult as Ridley Scott, though interested, was busy working on three films at the time. In September 1987, Giler and Hill approached cyberpunk author, William Gibson, to write the script for the third film. Gibson, who was influenced by Alien, agreed to write the script.

However, when a final screenplay (by David Twohy) was delivered to Fox president Joe Roth, he did not like the idea of Ripley being removed, declaring that "Sigourney Weaver is the centerpiece of the series" and Ripley was "really the only female warrior we have in our movie mythology." Weaver was then called, with a reported $5 million salary, plus a share of the box office receipts.