Weaver is a staunch gun control advocate, and it took some time for Cameron to explain why they were necessary for the film (she would later jokingly refer to herself as 'Rambolina'). Then there was the issue of guns in the film. While it would seem to be a no-brainer to bring Weaver back as Ripley, Fox didn't want to use her because she would cost too much, and Weaver was reluctant and needed to be convinced the film wasn't just a money-grab, but a decent film that could stand on its own. Rinzler says, 'Even though they did make sequels back then, they didn't make as many sequels because the general rule of thumb was that a sequel cost twice as much and made half as much.' Those issues were largely resolved by the time Cameron was hired, only to be replaced with new ones. Sequels in general were a hard sell, as author J.W. The producers of Alien were suing Fox over their cut of the film. The Fox executive that had okayed Alien, Alan Ladd Jr., had left the company. RELATED: Cast, Plot, and Everything Else We Know About Fede Alvarez's 'Alien 9Įven before Cameron's involvement, Aliens was fighting for life. And Aliens came perilously close to suffering the same fate as the ocean liner. You might say that despite the excellence of the finished product, the stuff behind the scenes hews much closer to the events on screen in another Cameron film: Titanic. Plus, the worst possible thing that can befall a movie production: tea time. The story of a film that played fast and loose with hazardous fumes, automobile mishaps, and knife tricks. It's a tale of ultimatums, hirings, firings ( literally firings), and culture clashes. Aliens skyrocketed Sigourney Weaver to Hollywood's A-list, and gave the franchise its most memorable quote with Ripley's 'Get away from her, you bitch!'Yet it wouldn't be a James Cameron film without some sort of drama behind the scenes now, would it? And Aliens had more than its fair share.

Alienstook a different route with the xenomorph from the first film and crafted a sci-fi action-adventure masterpiece, to the tune of $183,291,893 at the worldwide box office. and then promptly changed the s at the end to a dollar sign: Alien$. When James Cameron pitched his idea for a sequel to the 1979 science-fiction horror classic Alien, he wrote down 'Aliens'.

Greatness: beyond a shadow of a doubt