12 Alternative Versions Of Sci-Fi Movies We Didn't Get To See
9. Pitch Black
David Twohy’s dark (literally and figuratively) sci fi
horror Pitch Black saw the director pay homage to the Alien franchise with the
story of shadowy, toothy space monsters tearing their way through an underprepared
crew of toughs. However, years before the Vin Diesel vehicle was released, an
earlier draft of the script written by Nightmare on Elm Street 4 scribes Jim
and Ken Wheat diverged from the eventual Twohy film and would have seen the
flick hew far closer to its inspiration.
In the original draft the convict protagonist was a biologically-enhanced warrior woman, a Ripley-esque heroine whose presence would have changed the dynamic of the strained group of survivors, and the monsters were ghosts rather than aliens. This element was dropped by Twohy who had worked on an abandoned draft of Alien 3 and wanted a chance to explore new material, and hence Riddick was born.
What a shame—we could have had another, er… Ghosts of Mars?