Ridley Scott's prequel to Alien has been delayed by at least 12 months, with the new film now not due until 2013. So what's going on?
It can't just be us that's getting an odd feeling about Ridley Scott's upcoming prequel to the original Alien. Notwithstanding the fact that the director’s track record in recent years has been patchy (although many writers at this site would happily defend the director’s cut of Kingdom Of Heaven for some time), and notwithstanding the fact either that the Alien franchise has been battered hard by the terrible Alien vs Predator films, there’s still curiosity and concern as to the new prequel.
To be clear, though: the idea of a proper, respectful and intelligent prequel to the original Alien is a compelling one, and our ticket would be sold in double-quick time. Having the original director on board is also a very, very big selling point. But the noises come out of the project thus far - although some of these have been intensified by Internet chatter - are at the very least intriguing.
Take the plot, for starters. The story, almost inevitably, is looking at the tale of the space jockey from the first film, and finding out just who he is. The prequel is due to be set 30 years before the first Alien film, and thus far, that all sounds quite sensible. Yet there are elements that we reported here that sound just a little more off the wall.
There are also loud rumours of a battle over ratings. Ridley Scott is reported to be keen to go for an R rating in the States, while Fox is apparently pushing towards a PG-13. The other area of contention is budget, with the number that Fox and Scott are respectively looking to spend being just a little different. This dispute has made it, one way or another, into public knowledge.
Finally, lest we forget, the idea is for a pair of prequels. That in itself is going to pose more than a few challenges, especially as the back-to-back approach is likely to be employed.
Which is all building towards the news we suspect you came to read, but didn't want to hear: namely that the whole enterprise has been put back at least a year. Originally, the first of the two prequels was set to start production in February 2011, but Scriptflags is now reporting that we won’t be seeing the first of the new films until 2013, with the second due to follow the year after. And all that's in spite of the fact that production design work has already begun.
Is it fair to conclude, we wonder, that those battles over rating, budget and consequently script, are still ongoing? If they are, nobody is saying anything. But it’s an unwelcome delay, whatever the reason. And let’s just speculate here: we wouldn’t be surprised if Ridley Scott doesn’t turn out to be the eventual director of the film. We hope he is, we just wouldn’t put hard cash on it.
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