Wikipedia entry

The Alien film series is a science fiction horror film franchise, focusing on Lieutenant Ellen Ripley (played by Sigourney Weaver) and her battle with an extraterrestrial lifeform, commonly referred as "the Alien". Produced by 20th Century Fox, the series started with the 1979 film Alien, which led to three movie sequels, plus numerous books, comics and video game spinoffs.

In addition to the franchise are the "Alien vs. Predator" films (AvP: Alien vs. Predator and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem), based on the related franchise which combine the Aliens with the Predator beings from the Predator film series.

Contents [hide]
1 Films
1.1 Alien (1979)
1.2 Aliens (1986)
1.3 Alien 3 (1992)
1.4 Alien Resurrection (1997)
2 Development
2.1 Alien
2.1.1 Original script
2.1.2 Alien form and set
2.2 Aliens
2.3 Alien 3
2.4 Alien Resurrection
3 Future films
3.1 Prequel to Alien
4 Reception
4.1 Reviews
4.2 Grosses
5 Home video releases
6 Spin-offs
6.1 Novels
6.2 Comics
6.3 Video games
7 See also
8 References
9 Further reading
10 External links

[edit] Films
[edit] Alien (1979)
Main article: Alien (film)
The spaceship Nostromo goes to the desolated planetoid LV-426 after receiving an unknown signal from a derelict alien spacecraft. Whilst exploring the ship, one of the Nostromo's crewmen discovers an egg-like object which releases a creature that attaches itself to his face and renders him unconscious. Some time later, the parasite dies and the crewman wakes up, seemingly fine. However, an alien creature later bursts out of the crewman's chest and, after rapidly growing into an eight-foot creature, begins killing the rest of the crew.

[edit] Aliens (1986)
Main article: Aliens (film)
Lieutenant Ellen Ripley, the only survivor of the Nostromo, awakens 57 years later from hypersleep to discover that LV-426 is now home of a terraforming colony. However, contact with the colony has been lost, causing a squad of space marines accompanied by Ripley to be sent there.

[edit] Alien 3 (1992)
Main article: Alien 3
Due to an on-board fire aboard the ship that escaped from LV-426 at the end of the second film, an escape pod is released and crash-lands on a refinery/prison planet named Fiorina 'Fury' 161. Everyone on board dies in the crash except Ripley. Unbeknownst to Ripley, an Alien egg was aboard the ship, and the creature is born in the prison and begins a killing spree. Ripley later discovers there is also an alien growing inside her.

[edit] Alien Resurrection (1997)
Main article: Alien Resurrection
200 years after the incidents of the previous installment, Ellen Ripley is cloned and an Alien queen is surgically removed from her body. The United Systems Military hopes to breed Aliens to study and research on the spaceship USM Auriga, using human hosts kidnapped and delivered to them by a group of mercenaries. The Aliens escape their enclosures, while Ripley and the mercenaries attempt to escape and destroy the Auriga before it reaches its destination, Earth.

[edit] Development
[edit] Alien
After completion of the film Dark Star (1974), executive Dan O'Bannon thought to develop some of the ideas (especially the theme of "alien hunts crew through a spaceship") and create a science-fiction horror film. It was provisionally called Memory. Screenwriter Ronald Shusett collaborated with O'Bannon on the project, adding elements from a previous O'Bannon script, Gremlins, which featured gremlins causing mayhem aboard a World War II bomber and wreaking havoc with the crew. The duo finished the script, initially entitled Star Beast, and O'Bannon noticed the number of times the word "alien" occurred in the script, and so he adopted Alien for the film's title.[1][2] The writers imagined a low-budget film, but Star Wars' success inclined Fox to invest $8 million on production.[3]

[edit] Original script
In the original script, the ship has an all-male crew, including the Ripley character (though the script's 'Cast of Characters' section explicitly states that "The crew is unisex and all parts are interchangeable for men or women"), which would be played by actor Tom Skerritt, but later, character re-casting made Ripley a woman, because producer Alan Ladd, Jr., and script-doctors Walter Hill and David Giler had heard rumors of Fox working on other titles with strong female leads.[1] Skerritt became Captain Dallas, and Sigourney Weaver was cast as Ripley.[4]

[edit] Alien form and set
Swiss painter and sculptor H. R. Giger designed the alien creature's adult form and the derelict ship,[5] while Moebius created visuals for the spacesuits [1] and Ron Cobb provided most of the on-set design.[6]

[edit] Aliens
The first film of the series, directed by Ridley Scott, was successful, but Fox did not consider a sequel until 1983, when James Cameron expressed his interest to producer David Giler in continuing the Alien story. After Cameron's The Terminator became a box office hit, Cameron and partner Gale Anne Hurd were given approval to direct and produce the sequel to Alien, scheduled for a 1986 release.[7] Cameron wrote the screenplay from a story he developed with Giler and Walter Hill.

[edit] Alien 3
Following the second movie, Aliens, Sigourney Weaver was not interested in returning to the series and so producers David Giler and Walter Hill commissioned a third Alien film without the Ripley character. The premise was to return Ripley in a fourth installment, but Fox's president Joe Roth did not agree with Ripley's removal and Weaver was approached to make Alien 3. Released in 1992, the film was troubled from the start of production; without even a finished script and having already spent $7 million before pop music video director David Fincher, the third director considered for the film, was hired to helm the project.[8] After production was completed, the studio reworked the film without Fincher's involvement or consent.[9] Giler, Hill and Larry Ferguson wrote the screenplay, based on a story from an earlier script by Vincent Ward.

[edit] Alien Resurrection
While fans and critics did not receive Alien³ well, the film still made $160 million worldwide at the box office and piqued Fox's interest in continuing the franchise. In 1996, production on the fourth Alien film, Alien Resurrection, began. Ripley was not in the script's first draft, and Sigourney Weaver was not interested in reprising the role, though later joined the project after being given a reported $11 million salary and more creative control (including being able to approve director Jean-Pierre Jeunet [10]). The film, released in 1997, experienced an extended production and was described by screenwriter Joss Whedon as having done "everything wrong" with his script.[11]

[edit] Future films
Around the release of Alien Resurrection Joss Whedon wrote an Earth-set script for Alien 5, which Sigourney Weaver disliked.[12] Before 20th Century Fox greenlit Alien vs. Predator, James Cameron had been working on a story for a fifth Alien film. Alien director Ridley Scott had talked with Cameron and stated that he thought "it would be a lot of fun, but the most important thing [was] to get the story right."[13] In a 2002 interview Scott's concept for a story was "to go back to where the alien creatures were first found and explain how they were created", however he at first had not shown interest in pursuing the project.[13] On learning that Fox intended to pursue Alien vs. Predator, Cameron believed the film would "kill the validity of the franchise" and ceased work on his story, because to him "it was Frankenstein Meets Werewolf. It was Universal just taking their assets and starting to play them off against each other. […] Milking it."[14] On December 5, 2008, Sigourney Weaver hinted in an interview with MTV that she and Ridley Scott were working on an Alien spinoff film which would focus on the chronicles of Ellen Ripley rather than on the Aliens.[15]

[edit] Prequel to Alien
In May 2009 Carl Rinsch signed on to direct a prequel film to Alien. Ridley Scott and Tony Scott originally decided to function only as producers, with filming to begin in 2009.[16] However, Fox was unsure about making the film without Ridley's direction.[17] In July 2009 it was confirmed that Ridley Scott would be returning to direct an Alien prequel, with Jon Spaihts writing the script.[18][19] In October 2009 Ridley Scott said that he was "looking forward" to directing the prequel, and that it was "kind of interesting". He also briefly talked about the time period of the film, saying:

It's a brand new box of tricks. We know what the road map is, and the screenplay is now being put on paper. The prequel will be a while ago. It’s very difficult to put a year on Alien, but [for example] if Alien was towards the end of this century, then the prequel story will take place thirty years prior.[20]

In March 2010 Roger Christian, art director on the first Alien, further fueled the rumors that the film will be shot in 3D.[21]