25 Things You Didn't Know About Alien

11. The Filmmakers Originally Wanted To Avoid Having A Lone Female Survivor

Alien Sigourney Weaver
20th Century Fox

Despite Ellen Ripley's status as one of the most iconic female characters in cinema, Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett originally wanted her character to be male.

The "final girl" trope was already becoming a horror movie cliché with the likes of Laurie Strode in 1978's Halloween, and the writers wanted to avoid falling back on this trope.

Luckily, Sigourney Weaver's screen test was so impressive that she was given the role of Ripley, and the character defies the stereotype of the meek, virginal final girl with her resourcefulness and great strength of character.

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