There’s a new interview with Alien 3 director David Fincher on AICN. It’s mainly about the movie Zodiac but there’s a section on Alien 3 about the problems he faced.

“No, I mean again there were about six months on that movie where things were really exciting and we were going to do all of this different stuff and then the studio took over and that is sort of where things took a nose dive. It was like things were mandated, like blueprints for sets were cut in half and they just said, “This is the half of the set you get.”

It all comes down to script. That’s the thing you fight over the hardest and the longest and fight for first, but I mean yeah the stupidity of it was of course… I mean we had a lot of great ideas for a lot of really great stuff. Jake Scott did some amazing designs for a bunch of stuff that I brought to London and flipped everybody out with. They were like, “This guy’s bringing in his own set design.” But there was a lot of really interesting stuff and we just never got to explore it, because we were chasing a start date.”

Check out AICN for the full interview as well as mp3 files of the interview. Thanks to WeaponX for the news.

Izzet over at Alien Experience found a really interesting article over at VFXWorld that they posted before AvPR’s release. It deals with a lot of technical related stuff but it’s quite a good read:

“The film came in under budget, “which doesn’t seem to happen too often around here,” Colin says. “It actually freed up money so the studio would let us expand the movie and do the Predator home world and bunch of other cool sequences.”

Even though the film is out and the majority of our forum members probably hate it, I’d still recommend giving the article a read.

The box office figures are in for December 25. According to Box Office Mojo, the movie made $9,515,615 on Christmas Day. It’s slightly more than the $7-$9m ComingSoon predicted. It’s also the third all-time highest opening on a Christmas Day according to /Film.

ALL-TIME TOP SINGLE DAY CHRISTMAS OPENING DAY GROSSES
1. Ali – $10.2M
2. Catch Me If You Can – $9.8M
3. Alien vs. Predator: Requiem – $9.48M (estimate)
4. Patch Adams – $8M
5. Cheaper By the Dozen – $7.8M

Update: Figures for Wednesday are in. AvPR takings dropped over 50% to $4.28M according to /Film. Update #2: Thursday estimates are in. AvPR dropped another 35% and has gone down to $2.78M. Update #3: In Australia, AvPR opened in second place on Boxing Day with $1,113,225. Update #4: Friday figures are in. The takings went up slightly to $3,360,000. Update #5: AvPR made $3.46M on Saturday. Update #6: AvPR made $3,100,000 on Sunday. The domestic total so far is $26,880,000.

This is just a little post giving a roundup of all the reviews released so far. I’ll update this news post as more are released. I’ve split them up into good and bad.

The Good
MovieWeb (3.5/5)
7MPictures (3/5)
SKNR.net (3.5/5)
NYTimes (N/A)
Outtakes With Fiore (6/10)
One Guy’s Opinion (C)
IGN FilmForce (3.5/5)
Mania.com (C+)
Variety (N/A)

The Bad

Bloody-Disgusting’s review is quite amusing by the way. We’re still waiting for reviews from the big movie sites like CHUD, JoBlo’s and IGN. You can also find a lot of Fan Reviews in the Forum. Fan reaction is mixed. Fans either love it or hate it but generally, a lot of people are disappointed.

You may remember the picture of the Predalien maquette (seen below) that was circulated online earlier this year.

It was rumoured to have been sent to ADI when AvPR was in pre-production. Though that was true, it was never sent with the intent to design the creature. Even so, a lot of fans actually preferred this design to the version ADI made. Staff member Xenomorphine managed to interview the person who created the maquette, Shaun Noelte. Check out his excellent Interview about the maquette which has lots of pictures too.

…with a brand new featurette. This one’s a little video with the Brothers Strause as they talk about the movie and the previous films:

That’s not much we don’t already know in there. Couple new shots: One of Wolf smashing his way through pavement onto the surface. Interesting none-the-less. Check it out over at the Reelz site. You want the one that says AvPR Featurette, Brother’s Strause. Thanks to BAMF Hunter.

Ah, it always comes back to Aint It Cool News. Remember when they told us Anderson’s AvP was gonna suck balls? Remember when they got Fox – and us – in a big rile over an old AvP Requiem script? Good times. Well, they’re back to stir more trouble with two new reviews:

“So, basically what I’m saying is this very well might be the worst film of the year . . . worse than ‘Hitman’ . . . YES, WORSE THAN THAT. There’s one, ONE cool death, but I’ll leave that alone for anyone who finds themselves trapped watching this waste of celluloid. No tension, no buildup, no payoff, no point. Go see ‘Sweeney Todd’ again, I guarantee you’ll have a better time.”

So that ones negative, the other ones so-so. So erm…yeah. I sure hope this guy is talking out his ass. You can read them both over at AICN. Thanks to Space Disc Jockey.

There’s an interesting article on ComingSoon.net which predicts how movies are going to do this week at the box office. There’s a lengthy section on AvPR.

Why I Should See It: It’s aliens… fighting predators! Need we say more than just repeat the title?
Why Not: The first movie really wasn’t as good as it could have been and the fact that its sequel isn’t being screened in advance for critics might be telling that the sequel is even worse.
Projections: Opening day should be in the $7 to 9 million range including midnight shows, and then figure another $8 to 10 million on Wednesday and Thursday and another $17 to 19 million over the three-day weekend–roughly $33 and 35 million in six days–but it probably will end up somewhere between $65 to 70 million total, maybe slightly more with so few other movies opening in the next two weeks.

There’s a new review of AvP Requiem on DreadCentral. It’s pretty negative. They scored it 2/5 overall.

“The fact that Fox opted for this franchise instead of the Ridley Scott/James Cameron Alien 5 collaboration or Robert Rodriguez’s epic Predator 3 script will forever be one of Hollywood’s biggest blunders. Now that they’ve effectively ruined both franchises, the next move will probably be to go back and remake the first films in each series, permanently screwing the fans out of any good future installments. To paraphrase Jackson’s King Kong, that’s the thing you learn about Fox: They’re undying ability to destroy the things they love.”

They criticise the script which is fair game, I think, and the Strauses as well as the action sequences. On the plus side, they do like what ADI have done, the redesigned Predators and Predalien as well as the score.

There’s a new behind-the-scenes segment on IESB.net. It’s about six minutes long and features a few scenes being shot. Reiko and other characters in the rain, Ricky laying on the floor injured etc.

They’ve also got all the previous clips from Bloody-Disgusting in much better quality here too. I’ll just give you the direct links:

-Behind-The-Scenes Footage (46MB)
-AvPR Clip 1 (7MB)
-AvPR Clip 2 (8MB)
-AvPR Clip 3 (8MB)
-AvPR Clip 4 (8MB)
-AvPR Clip 5 (7MB)
-New TV Spot (2MB)

You’ve probably seen that last clip. It features Molly looking through night-vision goggles. Thanks to JK for the news.

Update: Screencaps from all these videos can be found in the Gallery.