7 Times Movie Studios And Directors Went To War

David Fincher is often known as one of the only directors to have never made a bad film. Although some would point out that his film, Alien3 was a dud, you can argue that he had almost no say on the production.

The original director, Vincent Ward wanted the story to take place on a medieval world. The producers weren't a fan of a group of knights battling an alien so the script was rewritten so the lead character, Ripley lands on a wooden world populated by monks. William Gibson wrote a script for a two-part story (which can be viewed online) but it was rejected. A trailer was released that implied the Xenomorph aliens would invade Earth but this never came to fruition. After at least 12 writers had a go with the script, David Fincher was given the director's chair.

Nowadays, Fincher is considered one of the most powerful directors in the world, but that wasn't always the case. Despite directing 55 short films and music videos before Alien 3, he had never overseen a feature-length film before. Although he had bold ideas for the story, the producers rejected them as they had spent far too much money on pre-production. Although the film has no guns, minimal special effects and one single alien, the movie cost $50 million, which is nearly triple the budget for the previous film.

When the producers refused to let Fincher shoot a crucial scene, he grabbed Sigourney Weaver, who portrayed Ripley and shot it anyway. When the producers got wind of this, they locked Fincher out of the editing room for a year and kept interfering with the film. Despite having a chaotic production, Alien 3 grossed $150 million, making it the most successful film in the series at the time.