Sigourney Weaver on Controversial David Fincher Sequel

The Alien franchise continues to hold its ground with the recent release of Alien: Romulus. However, in looking back at the franchise’s 45-year history and six films, one installment remains notably controversial: 1992’s Alien 3. With Sigourney Weaver reprising her iconic role as Ellen Ripley and directed by David Fincher in his feature directorial debut, the production of Alien 3 was fraught with difficulties. Notably, Fincher has since disowned the film.

Weaver recently reflected on the troubled production of the sequel, indicating that she sensed the lack of studio support Fincher faced. “Well, I could feel that David had to get on the phone and fight every day for us to shoot what he wanted the next day. And I’m sorry that he didn’t get a chance to make the script his own before we started,” Weaver told Deadline.

“That makes filmmaking very difficult. I recall that Vincent Ward’s original script had been about monks in a monastery and Ripley was in a coma for half of it. So, I keenly felt the lack of studio support. That was a transition moment where studios stopped being about ‘let’s make great films’ and started being about ‘let’s not lose money.’ They had the great idea to put David Fincher aboard for his first film, but then not to support the guy was very idiotic. It helped shooting in England so we could get on with things to an extent,” she added.

Despite the hardships, Weaver cherished her collaboration with Fincher and has fond memories of the project. “I heard recently that David has disowned the project and I’m sorry about that because I loved working with him, and I think we made a good film,” she said. “I’m glad he got a chance to do his version. It was a great ensemble.”

While Alien 3 marked a challenging period for the franchise, the long-running series continues to evolve. The latest installment, Alien: Romulus, is currently in theaters, featuring a diverse cast including Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn, and Aileen Wu. Directed by Fede Alvarez, known for Evil Dead and Don’t Breathe, the film’s screenplay was penned by Alvarez along with frequent collaborator Rodo Sayagues. The narrative is built upon characters created by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett.

The franchise is also making its way to television with the upcoming series Alien: Earth, set to premiere on FX in 2025. This new series, helmed by Noah Hawley, will serve as a prequel to Ridley Scott’s original 1979 Alien film. Though details about the series are scarce, Hawley has hinted that it will deviate from the traditional confines of the Alien movies, bringing the xenomorph threat to Earth.

“Look, a two-hour movie, you can set it up and then it’s just about, ‘Are they going to survive?’ But if you’re making a series, ‘Are they going to survive?’ you can’t sustain it. Even if you have 60% of the best action-horror on television, you still have 40% of ‘What are we talking about?'” Hawley explained.

Hawley further elaborated, “I had some conversations early on with Peter Rice, who used to run all of television at Fox and then the first couple of years at Disney, where it was like, ‘The thing with Alien is, it’s always trapped in a spaceship, trapped in a prison. What if it wasn’t that?'”

“What is this moment on Earth, technology-wise? And where are we? And the question science fiction always tends to ask is, does humanity deserve to survive? So that seems like a really interesting question to continue to explore,” he added.

Alien: Romulus is in theaters now.