10. A Not Terrible Alien 3
Ok, we know, Alien 3 got made. It's a thing. It exists. You can track it down and watch it with those gloopy seeing eye balls in that pretty old head of yours. But seriously, why would you want to go and do a stupid thing like that? It's an utterly dreadful movie. How do you follow Cameron's beefed up, testosterone fuelled, "Vietnam-in space" nightmare that was of course "Aliens"? Why, the only logical thing would be to negate the entire previous film by instantly killing off every character Ripley had desperately spent its running time trying to save. Then set the whole thing on a sad grey industrial sound stage, and have a crew of characters we don't care about get picked off one by one by a crappy alien dog thing. Yes, that sounds perfect.... Despite the fact that fans pilled out in droves to see this thing, it was of course a cornucopia of disappointment. Why? Because of the initial promise inherent in the movies teasers. What we had was the Alien logo and egg hovering above earth! Gad zoots! Could it be that the Xenomorphs would be tearing through some Blade Runner esque future metropolis dystopia with reckless abandon?! Per chance to dream! So what went wrong? Primarily there was no clear direction from the off. The production chewed through concepts like Charlton Heston chewed through scenery; that is to say, indiscriminately and with budget hacking abandon. The total number of rejected screenplays reached a whopping 30 (with one from cyperpunk godfather William Gibson I.E the one we would have all wanted...it featured a neat zombie twist on the Alien mythos). Sets were built and tore down, directors and crew were hired and fired, Sigourney Weaver kept asking for more money; it was by all accounts a terrible working environment. Then, very late in the game the man who would go on to gift us all Fight Club was brought into try and clear up the whole mess. But being a young and inexperienced director coming from the world of advertisements to now face a hacked apart, directionless, budget busted movie with a great deal of expectation on its shoulders did not for a creatively fertile environment make.