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Screenplays that never quite made it

Alien 3

October 30th, 2008 by mike

From monks to prisoners, this sequel had a strange up and down journey. (Personally, I never forgave them for killing off Hicks and Newt before the plot even kicked in.) It’s unclear to me who wrote the first draft, seeing how there’s one credited to Twohy and one to Ward and Fasano. Perhaps multiple writers were commissioned at the same time?

Alien III (revised first draft) by William Gibson
Alien 3 (unspecified draft) by Eric Red
Alien III (first draft) by David Twohy
Alien III (first draft) by John Fasano and Vincent Ward
Alien III (revision of Hill/Giler 12/90 draft) by Rex Pickett
Alien III (final draft) by Walter Hill and David Giler

2 Responses

Brother Joshua writes:
January 3rd, 20124:34 pmat

To my knowledge, this is the order

1. William Gibson
Missing around 30 pages from his first and only draft submitted. No rewrites.

2. Eric Red
Somewhat similar to William Gibson’s script (possibly from the same rough Giler/Hill treatment) in terms of the “alien virus” and space station setting, but otherwise a complete rewrite.

3. David Twohy
First prison-planet story. Bears a number of similarities with the later Alien Resurrection script.

4. John Fasano/Vincent Ward
New story.

5. Rex Pickett
Draft of Giler/Hill’s rewrite of Vincent Ward’s idea.

6. Walter Hill/David Giler
Shooting script, though rewritten during production.
mike writes:
January 3rd, 20124:57 pmat

Thanks, Joshua! I’ve updated the post to reflect the order you suggest.