Alien 3 had a particularly tortured production cycle, something that would probably make a really great tell-all book at some point, were it not for all the non-disclosure agreements it would be breaking and libel lawsuits it would inspire. One of the many screenwriters to take a crack at it was David Twohy, who's been remaking his first big hit Pitch Black for thirteen years. Before he ever cottoned onto the idea of a psychopathic Vin Diesel who can see in the dark kicking ass on a planet where monsters come out at night time and then ran that idea right down into the alien planet's core Twohy was a jobbing script monkey, contributing to everything from The Fugitive to Critters 2: The Main Course. His early draft of Alien 3 came in 1989, and was possibly genius, possibly absolute nonsense. To start off with, Ripley was gone. Instead, Twohy's script focussed on a new set of characters on a prison planet-cum-ore refinery, who discover a facehugger embedded deep within the rock. Fox weren't having any of that, with Sigourney Weaver one of the big draws of the franchise, and Twohy retooled most of his ideas for Pitch Black instead.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
