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James Cameron on Alien 5 / Prometheus

Aliens director James Cameron has made some rare comments in a “Ask Me Anything” interview on Reddit.com a few days ago. He discussed all sorts of things including the upcoming Avatar and Terminator sequels and of course the Alien series popped up in some questions. He says that Prometheus looked good but it didn’t really make sense in the continuity. He also mentions his plans for Alien 5 back in the early 2000s, just before 20th Century Fox decided to make Alien vs Predator. We still don’t know what his pitch for Alien 5 would have been though.

How did you feel about what Prometheus contributes to the Alien story arc? And which is your favourite movie?

Interesting. I thought it was an interesting film. I thought it was thought provoking and beautifully, visually mounted, but at the end of the day it didn’t add up logically. But I enjoyed it, and I’m glad it was made. I liked it better than the previous two Alien sequels… And it was done in native 3D and I’m a big fan of Native 3D done by directors who embrace it as an art form, like Ridley, Scorsese, Ang Lee.

Were you asked to do Alien 3? What happened with Alien 5? And would you consider working on the Prometheus sequels?

[Fox and I] never talked about Alien 3. I don’t remember the timing exactly, but I might have been making The Abyss at that time, also for Fox. What came up was the idea of doing Alien 5, and at one point I pitched that I would write it and produce it, and Ridley would direct it, and we had lunch talking about this, and we were in violent agreement, then nothing happened. What happened was Fox went ahead with Aliens Vs Predator, and I said “I really don’t recommend that, you’ll ruin the franchise, it’s like Universal doing Dracula versus the Werewolf,” and then I lost interest in doing an Alien film. But Prometheus is seen as the A-level alien, as opposed to rather, the derivative. I don’t think I have anything to offer on the Prometheus sequels, that’s Ridley’s, I think I’ll stick to the Avatar universe.

Thanks to Xenomorphine for the news.



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Comments: 15
  1. Xenomorphine
    Quote from: acrediblesource on Apr 20, 2014, 04:27:37 PM
    Best moves in the industry are to move away from adding too many more numbers in front of the title of the movie.
    Alien 5 would be a joke in front of such a big name as James Cameron.Even if it were written well, he'd move to change the name of the film altogether to something like (i don't know) Prometheus.
    It's the media thats at fault because once cut throat journalists have a title called Alien 5, they will take it to the slaughterhouse and rip it to shreds.

    Why? Purely because there might have been a '5' in the title? I don't think people would have been that petty.
  2. acrediblesource
    Best moves in the industry are to move away from adding too many more numbers in front of the title of the movie.
    Alien 5 would be a joke in front of such a big name as James Cameron.Even if it were written well, he'd move to change the name of the film altogether to something like (i don't know) Prometheus.
    It's the media thats at fault because once cut throat journalists have a title called Alien 5, they will take it to the slaughterhouse and rip it to shreds.
  3. Ash 937
    Maybe some of the ideas that Cameron and Ridley discussed for their aborted Alien 5 project will make it into the sequel for Prometheus.  I read that Prometheus 2 is suppose to be more Alien-like than the original film...which is a good thing imo.

  4. Jarac
    Sounds like Cameron was disappointed that they went ahead with AVP instead of trying with Alien 5. In frustration, he decided to focus on Avatar, while Ridley decided to focus on his other projects since Cameron became disillusioned, and the rest is history.
  5. Xenomorphine
    Quote from: SM on Apr 17, 2014, 02:00:04 AM
    Sounds like Riddles didn't have much to work with in the first place and Fox had their hearts set on AvP.

    Fox did, but nobody can argue Cameron is inexperienced on the directing and producing front and, judging by that quote, he seemed to feel Scott should have got back in contact during that time. Maybe it's a case of RS not thinking he needed to, but not so much as checking back with JC for updates seems like disinterest.
  6. Xenomorphine
    The agreement was apparently for Cameron to write something up and Scott to do the producing side of it. We know from 'Prometheus' that he liked to have an on-going oar in the water, in so far as wanting to bat ideas to and fro, which didn't happen here. But besides all of that, as a prospective producer, he should have been consulting about stuff like budget requirements, prospective filming locations and other things for the pre-production phase.

    I simply think he either just wasn't all that invested in it or is easily distracted.
  7. SM
    What was Ridely supposed to be doing if not these unrelated projects?  He's not a writer.  And Cameron is said to have stopped working on it he got wind of AvP.  Which means he never completed anything, leaving nothing for Riddles to do.
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