Dra9onBorn117

3rd Nov 2014

Aliens (1986)

Question: I know that the studio chose James Cameron to direct due to the strength of his script, but why wasn't Ridley Scott offered the chance to direct? And was the studio considering a sequel before Cameron joined?

Dra9onBorn117

Answer: It really was all down to James Cameron having already written the script and proving himself capable of directing with 'The Terminator.' It was just a quicker, easier, and almost certainly cheaper decision to let him direct his own script rather than get someone else, even Ridley Scott. While the producers had wanted to make an 'Alien' sequel almost immediately, at the time the head of 20th Century Fox didn't want to pursue it fearing it would be seen as an obvious cash-in and flop. When a new executive at the studio came in a couple years later, the project was put back on track, and I believe Cameron was the first to be approached to write the script.

TonyPH

Chosen answer: The studio was considering a sequel before Cameron was involved, but regarding directing it, Ridley Scott told "The Hollywood" in a 2008 interview, "They didn't ask me! To this day I have no idea why. It hurt my feelings, really, because I thought we did quite a good job on the first one." The studio liked Cameron's script and at that time he had enough clout to be able to insist on directing it.

raywest

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