From Script to Screen: Alien vs. Predator

The overall plot of Paul WS Anderson’s AvP remained largely unchanged through the course of its journey from script to screen. The heat bloom, the pyramid, the hunt, Lex and Scar are all present, as are most of the major cast in one way or another. But how many of these concepts were changed quite a lot on the way.

Part pointless trivia, part search for insight, this article will go over those changes and see how the story developed — for better or worse — until it hit the silver screen.

Sources: AvP Novel by Marc Cerasini; AICN script review dated October 29th, 2003; September 26th 2003 draft by Paul WS Anderson; Production Draft.

Note: I’m hesitant to use the novel for anything other than broad strokes, as without the source draft Cerasini was working from, it’s often impossible to tell what’s embellishment and what’s from the script. It’s also clear that many changes were made to coincide with the script as it developed, which further clouds what was in the original draft.

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