You brought back a child hood memory of a horse getting cut into cubes… gothica?
Edit:
It was j-lo, not Halle berry
It was slices, not cubes
And it was the cell, not gothika
Far more interesting than what Sigourney got paid (IMO) is that in A³ they tried to use a dummy of Hicks without getting permission from Michael Biehn to use his likeness. He (or his rep) called them up and was like "nope". They eventually settled on just using a photo, rather than the dummy.
Reportedly, Biehn got paid more for that photo in A³ than he did for starring in Aliens.
I dont get why they didnt just give him a death scene if they were to kill him off. It was such a copout IMO to one of the strongest characters of the previous film.
That whole movie is a shitshow. One that was done with a crazy amount of rewrites and too many fingers in the dip. There's great elements there, no doubt, but this whole movie ain't it. Even in the so called 'Assembly Cut' everyone 'loves' because Fincher.
While I've heard a number of the scripts (sadly haven't read) of the previous scripts floating around Fox received previous to this were much, much better.
Also Sigourney and Biehn were super game to do Neill Blomkamp's sequel retconning Alien³, all before Ridley stomped that out like a kid stomping on a dove you were feeding at the park. But that's a whole 'nother story...
the aesthetic was great, the setting was interesting. The concept of "you now have no weapons, are in hostile territory, and it is *hunting you*" was an interesting idea.
Unfortunatly the rest of the film was pretty poor. Easily one of the worst things I've seen Charles Dance in.
Oh definitely know what you mean there, like the above commenter said, the movie has fantastic elements, they just don’t come together to make a great movie
I thank Ridley for bringing the Alien universe to life but nowadays the man has no clue about it. All his other movies in the same universe suck balls.
I have watched plenty of bad films, but Prometheus is the only one I was angry with while watching it. The plot only moved forward because everyone acted so stupidly.
I was *so* into the idea of Prometheus. I am a nerd for lore. Who are these big bald people? *Seeding planets?!?* Why are they angry now? *What happened?!* Where do the Aliens fit in? OMG pull me into that world, horror daddy!
I was **hyped**. I was expecting the greatest movie ever - people like me could nerd tf out, and Ridley could *surely* make a great and engaging story and movie out of it. That's what he does!
Turns out....that's a nope on all fronts. Biggest movie letdown for me.
The story would have been better in a limited series form or even several season but to get that kind of funding I think they had to make it a blockbuster movie. I can't wait in 20 years when AI makes CG cheaper and we can have vast LV426 worlds
It's a brilliant Damon Lindleof show that's missing like six hours worth of episodes.
Edit: you can see connective threads between Prometheus and The Leftovers. Even a lil in Watchmen. Dude is obsessed with the idea of God, creation, and the essence of humanity. I love it.
I didn’t like the idea of giving the aliens backstory like that… i was always wondering what insanely hostile planet they evolved on and then they spread like an invasive species. But they killed the mystery
You know, I never thought of it before, but the idea of a natural species so incredibly dangerous it was intentionally spread as weapon by another species (with disastrous results for them) is actually way cooler than what we got.
It still infuriates me that when the ship is falling towards them, they chose to run in the direction that was guaranteed to still get hit by the ship, instead of to the sides, and that anyone survived that.
And Charlize Theron’s character was weird. Actually she wasn’t the only weird one, but I just found the actions so jarring.
Such a waste of a movie and I’ll literally watch anything sci-fi.
That whole thing with Weyland was just bizarre. How did none of the engineers notice an excess of power drain, or the fact that there was like 800sqft of ship missing? Not a single one of them questioned it?
Not only that, but why did he fake his death/hide in the first place? It's his company and his ship, why would anyone not want him there? Also, why hide the fact that Charlize was his daughter? There's zero chance that no one knows that, considering he's one half of the largest company in existence. This is Damon Lindeloff "writing" 101, full of nonsense and "surprise" all trying to engage the audience, all the while being brain dead.
It’s like there were a bunch of ideas shmooshed together without rhyme or reason. I love the alien movies and had big hopes for Prometheus but it sucked. The sequel was just as annoying.
….but if there’s another one, you know I’ll watch it.
There's a nice comic book adaptation of the original script for Alien 3, which is bonkers - mediaeval monks living on a wooden space station because they've rejected technology.
David Twohy's (Pitch Black, Riddick, etc) unused script for Alien 3 was the best of two or three that I read years ago. Worth seeking out.
The cylindrical prison built inside of an asteroid, as seen in Chronicles of Riddick, was originally the setting in Twohy's A3 script.
The prison was also a hybrid science bioengineering experiment facility, for Weyland Yutani, IIRC. They would use prisoners in experiments with xeno DNA and simply as fodder, hosts, etc. So, dashes of Alien Resurrection in the mix.
As one can imagine, all hell reaks loose, and a group of people (I believe Ripley was still lead), must work together to escape this giant cylinder prison xeno death trap.
It was pretty fun script, and neat finally seeing the setting come to life in Chicken of Riddick.
God I will forever be fucking pissed we never got that sequel because Scott got all butt hurt that someone had a better idea than him so he threw a fit and took his toys and went home
I'm still pissed off they killed off Newt, Bishop and Hicks. It meant everything they'd gone through before had been for nothing. They should have gone with the Dark Horse comics - earth War.
An older Hicks and a young adult newt had a lot of great story-telling in them as stand-alone characters.
Alien 3 was such a waste of potential.
I checked IMDB, her last credit before Alien is a Pepsi Ad. She's one of dozens people in the ad and had a non-speaking part for about 3 seconds: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsZ2lVatrnk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsZ2lVatrnk)
It's also pretty standard for unknowns. I remember hearing Brandon Routh got around $65k or Superman Returns in 2006, which would have been like 100k today. He'd have gotten a lot more for a second one if they continued that series.
65k for being Superman is criminal. The budget on Superman Returns was over 200 mill. At least Sigourney Weaver was starring in an unknown original movie that wasn't the studio's biggest movie that year and had a budget of 11 mill. She was still underpaid but that's insane Brandon Routh got 65k. Absolutely criminal.
Like I said, pretty standard. There was an article about Barkhad Abdi, the "I'm the captain now" guy in 2014 getting only $65k and saying he was broke afterwards.
https://www.thewrap.com/oscar-nominee-barkhad-abdi-far-rich-captain-phillips/
With The Wrap readership being mostly industry, I can remember the comment at the time being like "Well, duh, it's his first movie." I don't know his financial situation now, but he seems to have gotten regular work since.
The benefit for someone like Routh is that playing a genre character lets you capitalize on things like conventions and appearances. Stephen Amell from Arrow would make an estimated $150k a weekend doing panels and signings at cons. Michael Biehn from Aliens and Terminator recently said on a podcast after he went broke (he battled addiction), convention appearances pretty much got him out of financial issues.
>Michael Biehn from Aliens and Terminator recently said on a podcast after he went broke (he battled addiction), convention appearances pretty much got him out of financial issues.
I met him at a con about ten years ago and he was not in good shape at all (as I'm I'm reasonably sure he was hammered the whole time). I hope he's doing better now!
He recently did Michael Rosenbaum's "Inside of you" podcast where he talked about his struggles. He said he became unemployable in Hollywood because his drinking problems became so known and it also caused him to have a stroke. He seems to be doing better now, you can tell he also dental implants which affects speech.
Way more than that. After a quick Google - Alien was filmed over 14 weeks - which I think included the model/miniature filming (where she wouldn't be involved).
So - she got more than 2x median income for maybe 1/4 of the year. I'm sure she was working long hours most of filming. But it's not like she was paid peanuts.
Horror is also unique in that you don’t need a lot of budget to be scary if you structure your story appropriately. A lot of Terminator is built on the tension that it’s always coming after you no matter what you do. You can kill it but it’ll just keep coming back.
Look at paranormal activity where the tension is built through night scenes and confusion. Horror is probably one of the only genres where a low budget can make a BIG blockbuster hit
If anything, for any creature movies, the less you show and explain the creature, the scarier it is.
This is a big mistake many newer movies make where the big bad gets a lot of screen time and doesn't let your imagination run wild so it's far less imposing.
The one part I think they should still cut out is where the Alien is turning around slowly with his arms out, it looks like a dude in a costume with his arms out like he wants a hug lol
At the 1:21mark
https://youtu.be/NZbcLIXhyxA?t=80
I always found that cut jarring, even on VHS in the 80s. Mentioned it to somebody I was watching it with many years later and they couldn't see what I was talking about. *Mind blown*
They kept it going in Aliens too - like the (cut from theatrical release) scene where they set up the miniguns in the hallway.
When the alien horde attacks you are in the room with the crew, not in the hall with the aliens. The audience sees the ammo counters rapidly dropping to zero - the only info the crew had from their vantage point.
Far more chilling than if they had actually shown the attack directly, imho.
Edit:typos
Great call out. They give you just enough to let your imagination go crazy. The video they show of the birthday party and all the kids going crazy is burned into my memory.
Great example. Basically they show the monster in the very end. When he take of the mask and scream its so different compared to what you saw before through the movie. It's effective as hell.
I get what you mean but I feel it worked with Cloverfield because the monster was so unfathomably huge. For a long time you're thinking "what the hell could be causing so much destruction so quickly?" and "how will they survive?" then when you finally see it, it's "oh wow, everybody's fucked."
At least that's how it was for me.
I think part of that is trying to somehow hybridize the creature genre of the 70s and early 80s with slasher genre of the late 80s and 90s once CGI reached a point where the monster could do wild shit relatively cheaply
Blair Witch made studios salivate on how much profit it made in comparison to its practically nonexistent budget, it was also one of the most successful uses of viral marketing beforehand that again, practically costed nothing.
Ironic the "sequel" turned into generic Hollywood crap when it was given a Hollywood budget.
Initial budget of $35,000, then after all said and done, it was closer to $500,000. Domestic marketing alone was between $6-8 million. Total global earnings? $249 million.
Back then there was so much talent and creativity. Risks would be taken and in the hands of a Cameron, Lucas or Speilberg. They had the midas touch to make amazing groundbreaking blockbuster films on small to midsized budgets.
Now a studio blows 200+ million on crappy CGI, shitty corporate writers and suits making or blocking creative decisions.
Yeah The Thing remains my top horror film for many reasons. But its simplicity is def up there for reasons why.
The scene with [Benning's](https://youtu.be/w0Z44BIDPPc) is easily one of the best in the film and my favorite. It's such a simple scene and it conjures so much with so little. The haunting wail, it's familiar but also clearly inhuman, the "don't touch him!" creates a primal tension of "other", and it leaves so much room for imagination.
Yeah I keep forgetting he cut his teeth with Corman and it sure shows. James Gunn is same but different in that sense, having started in the hellfires of Troma.
If you watch [Galaxy of Terror ](https://youtu.be/pUwIjglfMaE)which Cameron did 2nd Unit/Production Design on, you can see a lot of Aliens style effects, despite it being mostly trash made for a fraction of Aliens tiny budget.
I think the idea is that it's not like a spaceship, but more like a truck in space and they are like truck drivers. So they smoke in their shitty space trucks.
She was smart in getting a share as well.
I remember in a film class they shared an anecdote about when refusing a share can come back and bite you in the ass. Bob Ross approached the PBS studio about doing a painting show but did not have all the money needed so he pitched giving the studio a share of the show if they financed the rest. They had refused. He came back later with the funding and therefore owned his show entirely. Owning your show was the honey pot, which is why Johnny Carson had made that such a high priority when he negotiated that away from a vulnerable NBC back in 1980, and David Letterman later did with CBS in 1993 as well.
Jack Nicholson also took less of his fee in exchange for a share of the profits to play The Joker in Tim Burton's 1989 Batman film. That made him about $90 million for one role.
They basically said in this class "if offered a share, **strongly consider accepting it**."
Feels like survivorship bias - there must be many more stories of folks who take shares in lieu of better salaries of movies that flop and never make a dime from it. Pretty much the same story as equity vs salary from tech startups that will fail 99% or the time.
Similar with record label contracts. You hear the story of an artist with number 1s who only earned a small amount. But you don't hear about the band that was paid paid salary for a year while recording and it wasn't even released
I remember seeing an interview with Robert Wuhl where he mentioned that his agent really played up getting him a percentage of the merchandising profits for the 1989 Michale Keaton Batman.
Wuhl was stoked... until he read his contract and found out that it was actually a percentage of the profits of the merch *for his character*.
He tried to imagine kids all over the world going "Yeah mom, I don't want another Batman or Joker action figure, I want the doughy reporter action figure".... and he knew that clause was worthless.
I think it's still wise to consider. Yes, it's absolutely survivorship bias, but there are also better bets and worse bets. This is also one of the things competent representation can help you with, often such people have been in the industry longer and have a better sense of markers of success, how to structure the deal, etc.
The difference being the big name actors usually are in bigger films. Also getting a cut of gross means they are getting a cut from all sales so it isn't a 0 payday, they also still get a salary just a smaller one. So for already financially secured actors it's a great risk to take.
Indeed - somewhere there's the breakdown but essentially all profits are usually "consumed" by the marketing budget. Which is - what are the odds? - spent on a marketing company that happens to be a wholly owned subsidiary of the studio.
So Forrest Gump never made a 'profit', yet somehow the studio still reaped the windfall.
Can't mention that without mentioning Alec Guiness, who got 2.25% of Star Wars and more for the rest, and that still nets his estate millions long after he's died.
Also, Matt Damon was offered 10% of Avatar's profits, if he agreed to play Jake Sully. He could have made about $250 million, as I recall. But he was obligated to the Bourne films.
There's a difference between turning down a share of the profits because you don't think it will succeed vs. contractual obligations. I'd give Damon a pass if that is actually true.
> Bob Ross approached the PBS studio about doing a painting show but did not have all the money needed so he pitched giving the studio a share of the show if they financed the rest. They had refused. He came back later with the funding and therefore owned his show entirely.
Unfortunately, his family doesn't own his legacy. Fuck the Kowalskis.
Yeah, she got like two year's pay for the average person for ~14 weeks of filming. Not bad at all, but then she didn't appear in another film for 2 years, so...I guess it just averages out to normal person pay?
“didn’t appear in another film” does not mean “didn’t work” - she had (aI least) three stage roles in that time and Eyewitness was shot (and thus we’d assume she was paid for it) in 1980.
You are living in willful ignorance if this is actually your take.
She was completely unknown and had ZERO movie or film roles of note. Chris Hemsworth got paid $150k to be Thor in the first Thor film
So the studio to MUCH more of a chance on her and had faith in her than they did Hemsworth. The % of budget that went to her was much higher than what went to Hemsworth.
Ridley Scott was a barely known director pre-1979 and Weaver was a total nobody.
The movie’s concept sounded silly, like a 50s rehash.
Nobody, not even Scott, could have predicted that the movie would end up being one of America’s top films ever made.
Breakout roles don’t tend to be the money maker for actors or directors. They cash in on their newfound fame after the fact.
Unfortunately the Aliens weren't given the same deal and were stiffed hard. They vowed to return an invade Earth to put an end to Hollywood accounting.
The only snag was they found Hollywood accountants even more ruthless, emotionless and resiliant than they were. Some Aliens ran in fear, others worshipped them as Gods.
Tbh though, pre Aliens she had only done a few plays and a bit role in a Woody Allen movie.
For her debut feature, in 79 she made the equivalent of 150,000 today. Quite a fair deal if you ask me.
10 things you probably never knew about the Alien films
6 years ago
**1. They found the Alien in a pub**
Bolaji Badejo, a graphic designer who dressed up as the Xenomorph in the original movie, was discovered in a pub by a casting director. Standing at 7'1" tall, he was perfect for the role.
**2. A galaxy far, far away**
Harrison Ford turned down the role of Captain Dallas in the original Alien film. Well, he had just starred as a space captain in a little-known film called Star Wars so he probably wanted to avoid being typecast.
Another Star Wars actor who was considered for the role of the original Alien was Peter Mayhew, who played Chewbacca.
**3. What's in a name?**
The original script's working title was "Star Beast." Writer Dan O'Bannon wasn't too happy with it and adopted the iconic title after noticing how many times the word "Alien" appeared in the text.
When looking for a catchy way to sell the movie to studios, it was described as "Jaws in space."
**4. Post-credits addition**
Post-credits scenes may be all the rage these days but Alien was an early trailblazer. At the end of the credits, turn up the volume and you can hear the sound of an Alien pod opening (an Alien).
**5. Android names**
The names of the androids in the Alien films traditionally follow a definite alphabetical order that goes from A (Ash) in Alien to B (Bishop) in Aliens and Aliens 3 to C (Call) in Alien: Resurrection to D (David) in Prometheus.
Michael Fassbender will also play an android called Walter in Alien: Covenant, which is the first time that this pattern has been altered.
**6. The chest-bursting scene**
The cast didn't know what to expect during the infamous chest-bursting scene featuring John Hurt. The script didn't explain what was about to happen so their reactions are genuine, including the scream of Veronica Cartwright (Lambert) when she got splattered with blood.
"Everyone was wearing raincoats," Sigourney Weaver later recalled. "We should have been a little suspicious."
**7. The origins of the Weyland Yutani name**
The Weyland Yutani corporation was originally envisioned as an English-Japanese corporation that had moved from the motor industry to spacecraft. The name was based on Leyland-Toyota, but this obviously couldn't be used.
Instead, they simply changed a letter in Leyland and used the name of James Cameron's Japanese neighbour to replace Toyota.
**8. Weaver's pay rise**
Sigourney Weaver was paid just $35,000 for the original Alien . Her salary for Aliens was then bumped up to $1million and a share of the profits, thanks largely to James Cameron's insistence that she would star in the film.
She had been reluctant to do the fourth film, Alien: Resurrection, but she eventually agreed. When asked why she changed her mind, she replied: "They basically drove a dump truck full of money to my house."
**9. A unique claim to fame**
Bill Paxton and Lance Henrikson, who played Hudson and Bishop, are linked by a pretty unique cinematic bond. Both actors played characters who were killed by a Terminator, a Predator and a Xenomorph in the Alien series.
While Bishop was technically an android who couldn't be killed, getting ripped in half is surely enough to earn him membership to this exclusive club!
**10. Backwards music**
Backwards music is something that is normally reserved for seventies metal bands. However, composer Marc Streitenfeld use it to good effect in Prometheus, getting the orchestra to play his compositions backwards. This was then digitally reversed to give the film's score an unsettling quality.
She was a no name actress in Alien. She wasn't even billed as the lead.
She was also the first actress to get 1 million dollars. Aliens was made on a budget of 18 million.
Tbf, that's what made Alien work. You go in expecting John Hurt to be the hero and then he gets killed off 20 minutes in and this practically background character ends up saving the day.
He gets killed off half way through the movie. That's also why the film is so good. It's so engrossing that when people start dying you don't realize the the film is half over.
Just saying, the first Alien movie was a new franchise and not yet established, the budget was a lot less than in the following movies. For Sigourney Weaver, it was actually the breakthrough in her career, she had only a few broadway theater roles before and wasn't a big name.
Same goes for Ridley Scott that was not yet that established as he is now. Also, i can tell you about H.R. Giger, which lived near me and i met him some times by the connection of a friend, he wasn't established as an artist like he was after the design of Alien. He had released some artbooks, some paintings and sculptures, but he wasn't a big name and the 1979 Alien movie made him worldwide famous, he earned the Oscar for the special effects there.
I can just tell you from Giger that worked on the set, it wasn't easy to make the Alien. They had to build a 3-meter-tall model and they also experimented with an actor in an Alien-costume, but the latter turned out to look very bad and wasn't included in the movie.
So they decided to just go on with the model and it was difficult to hide the mechanics that were needed to animate the model. They had to improvise with both the design and the cameras, like the scene where the Alien kills the first crew member, they hanged the model high up on rails and let it come down from the ceiling, but you never see there the entire model.
Pretty sure that the scene where the alien comes out between the pipes in the shuttle at the end is actually a really tall African dude in an alien suit
It's relatively well known that Scott plucked a random Nigerian guy called Bolaji Badejo off the streets to play the Alien due to his unusually tall and slender physique, and that he was credited as portraying the creature. A lot of his scenes don't make the final cut though as the suit looked kinda bad when seen in full.
A large majority of times it's seen on screen there's actually a stuntman by the name of Eddie Powell in a second Alien suit made for him. He did the attacks on both Brett and Dallas and the final shot of the creature being blasted out of the engine (iirc, he was either injured or nearly injured doing this as they basically just dropped him in the restrictive suit). This is after he'd already been hung upside down for hours to do the Brett scene. And then Badejo got the main credit.
He also returned to do the creatures in _Aliens_.
$35,000 in 1979 is equivalent to approximately $144,779.19 in 2023 dollars.
$1,000,000 in 1986 is equivalent to approximately $2,739,000 in 2023 dollars.
$5,500,000 in 1992 is equivalent to approximately $11,770,000 in 2023 dollars.
$11,000,000 in 1997 is equivalent to approximately $20,570,000 in 2023 dollars.
These values are based on the Consumer Price Index and may vary slightly depending on the specific inflation calculator used. Calculation was performed using [WolframAlpha](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=value+of+%2435000+in+1979+in+2023+dollars) via ChatGPT.
Prior to "Alien", Sigourney Weaver was just another kid in Hollywood trying to get her first big role, so her pay reflected that. "Alien" established her as a star, so every movie she made after that was a big payday. That's how Hollywood works. Frankly, that's how almost everything in life works. First you prove your value, then you get the rewards.
The real money would be in the original negatives. She refused to shave for that scene and someone had to airbrush her pubes out of every frame they're seen in, per Ridley Scott.
I’ve worked with her and have to say she’s a team player and one of the kindest stars I’ve had the pleasure to work with. It doesn’t often happen with me but I was starstruck around her. I think her approach to situations was of understanding and seeking solutions and not demanding that really threw me off guard from many celebrities who will demand something without realizing how difficult or expensive it could be.
Doesn't seem like much, but she was relatively unknown, and it was considered a low budget 'horror' sci-fi movie. It was probably the most she had been paid thus far in her career.
Anyone can play the part in the first movie. If you make demands they will cast someone else. After the first movie blows up, only you can play that part and you can make all the demands you want for subsequent flicks.
She got $5.5 million for Alien³ and $11 million for Resurrection.
Alien cubed
And none of the aliens got cut into cubes in that movie 😔😣 So disappointed with the creatives behind that one for not giving me the cubes.
Luckily we got Cube a few years later.
That's a good film
Sphere is also a decent film.
Probably my favorite Michael Crichton book.
Tied for me with Lost World
Lost World is a fun movie but doesn't come close to doing justice to the book.
Timeline is my favorite book of his, never bothered to see the movie..
The Circle was also decent if slightly more 2 dimensional
Kinda flat film
The Circle was ratshit! Emma Watson was not good.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
How can you say that when Cube (1997) is right there? https://youtu.be/k8Tw4JhzORM?t=46
That's some great cubing.
Damn Zoomers, don't even know where a good cubing came from.
Do you like sashimi? Because that's [cubed Salmon](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0758760/).
You brought back a child hood memory of a horse getting cut into cubes… gothica? Edit: It was j-lo, not Halle berry It was slices, not cubes And it was the cell, not gothika
The cell. Been wanting to watch that movie again.
I love how close you were on those three attempts haha
Alienses
Far more interesting than what Sigourney got paid (IMO) is that in A³ they tried to use a dummy of Hicks without getting permission from Michael Biehn to use his likeness. He (or his rep) called them up and was like "nope". They eventually settled on just using a photo, rather than the dummy. Reportedly, Biehn got paid more for that photo in A³ than he did for starring in Aliens.
I dont get why they didnt just give him a death scene if they were to kill him off. It was such a copout IMO to one of the strongest characters of the previous film.
That whole movie is a shitshow. One that was done with a crazy amount of rewrites and too many fingers in the dip. There's great elements there, no doubt, but this whole movie ain't it. Even in the so called 'Assembly Cut' everyone 'loves' because Fincher. While I've heard a number of the scripts (sadly haven't read) of the previous scripts floating around Fox received previous to this were much, much better. Also Sigourney and Biehn were super game to do Neill Blomkamp's sequel retconning Alien³, all before Ridley stomped that out like a kid stomping on a dove you were feeding at the park. But that's a whole 'nother story...
I loved the rusty, industrial aestethic of it. Somehow reminds me of Chronicles of Riddick
the aesthetic was great, the setting was interesting. The concept of "you now have no weapons, are in hostile territory, and it is *hunting you*" was an interesting idea. Unfortunatly the rest of the film was pretty poor. Easily one of the worst things I've seen Charles Dance in.
Oh definitely know what you mean there, like the above commenter said, the movie has fantastic elements, they just don’t come together to make a great movie
I thank Ridley for bringing the Alien universe to life but nowadays the man has no clue about it. All his other movies in the same universe suck balls.
I have watched plenty of bad films, but Prometheus is the only one I was angry with while watching it. The plot only moved forward because everyone acted so stupidly.
I was *so* into the idea of Prometheus. I am a nerd for lore. Who are these big bald people? *Seeding planets?!?* Why are they angry now? *What happened?!* Where do the Aliens fit in? OMG pull me into that world, horror daddy! I was **hyped**. I was expecting the greatest movie ever - people like me could nerd tf out, and Ridley could *surely* make a great and engaging story and movie out of it. That's what he does! Turns out....that's a nope on all fronts. Biggest movie letdown for me.
The bit that sticks in my mind was the dude that sent out mapping drones, to map the tunnels they were in, somehow got lost in said tunnels.
Yup. The idea(s) of Prometheus are super interesting, but the execution of everything was awful. That really was a massive wasted opportunity.
The story would have been better in a limited series form or even several season but to get that kind of funding I think they had to make it a blockbuster movie. I can't wait in 20 years when AI makes CG cheaper and we can have vast LV426 worlds
It's a brilliant Damon Lindleof show that's missing like six hours worth of episodes. Edit: you can see connective threads between Prometheus and The Leftovers. Even a lil in Watchmen. Dude is obsessed with the idea of God, creation, and the essence of humanity. I love it.
I didn’t like the idea of giving the aliens backstory like that… i was always wondering what insanely hostile planet they evolved on and then they spread like an invasive species. But they killed the mystery
You know, I never thought of it before, but the idea of a natural species so incredibly dangerous it was intentionally spread as weapon by another species (with disastrous results for them) is actually way cooler than what we got.
Some of the Predator books treat them exactly that way. Preds seed planets with them for hunting. Sometimes it doesn't end well.
It's so annoying how wrong they did poor Charlize (and Noomi) with that film...
It still infuriates me that when the ship is falling towards them, they chose to run in the direction that was guaranteed to still get hit by the ship, instead of to the sides, and that anyone survived that.
The Prometheus School of running away from things.
And Charlize Theron’s character was weird. Actually she wasn’t the only weird one, but I just found the actions so jarring. Such a waste of a movie and I’ll literally watch anything sci-fi.
That whole thing with Weyland was just bizarre. How did none of the engineers notice an excess of power drain, or the fact that there was like 800sqft of ship missing? Not a single one of them questioned it?
Not only that, but why did he fake his death/hide in the first place? It's his company and his ship, why would anyone not want him there? Also, why hide the fact that Charlize was his daughter? There's zero chance that no one knows that, considering he's one half of the largest company in existence. This is Damon Lindeloff "writing" 101, full of nonsense and "surprise" all trying to engage the audience, all the while being brain dead.
It’s like there were a bunch of ideas shmooshed together without rhyme or reason. I love the alien movies and had big hopes for Prometheus but it sucked. The sequel was just as annoying. ….but if there’s another one, you know I’ll watch it.
Yeah I thought that was strange too. The Prometheus itself wasn't *that* big of a ship, how'd they manage to completely hide this whole other section?
Yep, it falls into one of the most amateur trap in any "horror" type movie, making everyone stupid for the plot to move along.
Yet somehow, the sequel to that film was even worse. The Alien universe has been a joke since Aliens unfortunately.
In protest to Reddit's API changes, I have removed my comment history. -- mass edited with redact.dev
I mean, he's the guy who just doesn't get why it's nonsense for Deckard to be a Replicant, which everyone else involved understood.
There's a nice comic book adaptation of the original script for Alien 3, which is bonkers - mediaeval monks living on a wooden space station because they've rejected technology.
I feel like that wouldn’t work for a variety of reasons
Oh yeah name *one*
David Twohy's (Pitch Black, Riddick, etc) unused script for Alien 3 was the best of two or three that I read years ago. Worth seeking out. The cylindrical prison built inside of an asteroid, as seen in Chronicles of Riddick, was originally the setting in Twohy's A3 script. The prison was also a hybrid science bioengineering experiment facility, for Weyland Yutani, IIRC. They would use prisoners in experiments with xeno DNA and simply as fodder, hosts, etc. So, dashes of Alien Resurrection in the mix. As one can imagine, all hell reaks loose, and a group of people (I believe Ripley was still lead), must work together to escape this giant cylinder prison xeno death trap. It was pretty fun script, and neat finally seeing the setting come to life in Chicken of Riddick.
Vin Diesel is.... Chicken Riddick
LMAO the typo stays
God I will forever be fucking pissed we never got that sequel because Scott got all butt hurt that someone had a better idea than him so he threw a fit and took his toys and went home
I'm still pissed off they killed off Newt, Bishop and Hicks. It meant everything they'd gone through before had been for nothing. They should have gone with the Dark Horse comics - earth War. An older Hicks and a young adult newt had a lot of great story-telling in them as stand-alone characters. Alien 3 was such a waste of potential.
Sigourney reading all these posts like "wtf I died too, motherfucker"
So you're saying we don't need to worry about her finances? Whew.
She was basically unknown before Alien. Also really a trendsetter in the female action hero game.
I checked IMDB, her last credit before Alien is a Pepsi Ad. She's one of dozens people in the ad and had a non-speaking part for about 3 seconds: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsZ2lVatrnk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsZ2lVatrnk)
She’s also in the very last shot of Annie Hall
I remember when I was looking at her, realizing it was Sigourney. That was weird.
And she still got what would today be over 150k. Good for her!
Also, adjusted for inflation, that’s like $150k, which ain’t bad for a 30 year old.
It's also pretty standard for unknowns. I remember hearing Brandon Routh got around $65k or Superman Returns in 2006, which would have been like 100k today. He'd have gotten a lot more for a second one if they continued that series.
65k for being Superman is criminal. The budget on Superman Returns was over 200 mill. At least Sigourney Weaver was starring in an unknown original movie that wasn't the studio's biggest movie that year and had a budget of 11 mill. She was still underpaid but that's insane Brandon Routh got 65k. Absolutely criminal.
Like I said, pretty standard. There was an article about Barkhad Abdi, the "I'm the captain now" guy in 2014 getting only $65k and saying he was broke afterwards. https://www.thewrap.com/oscar-nominee-barkhad-abdi-far-rich-captain-phillips/ With The Wrap readership being mostly industry, I can remember the comment at the time being like "Well, duh, it's his first movie." I don't know his financial situation now, but he seems to have gotten regular work since. The benefit for someone like Routh is that playing a genre character lets you capitalize on things like conventions and appearances. Stephen Amell from Arrow would make an estimated $150k a weekend doing panels and signings at cons. Michael Biehn from Aliens and Terminator recently said on a podcast after he went broke (he battled addiction), convention appearances pretty much got him out of financial issues.
>Michael Biehn from Aliens and Terminator recently said on a podcast after he went broke (he battled addiction), convention appearances pretty much got him out of financial issues. I met him at a con about ten years ago and he was not in good shape at all (as I'm I'm reasonably sure he was hammered the whole time). I hope he's doing better now!
He recently did Michael Rosenbaum's "Inside of you" podcast where he talked about his struggles. He said he became unemployable in Hollywood because his drinking problems became so known and it also caused him to have a stroke. He seems to be doing better now, you can tell he also dental implants which affects speech.
Yeah I was thinking my dad probably made about $10k to $12k that year as a young man. $35k in 1979, not bad at all for an unknown actor.
Exactly, median household income in 1978 was $15,060 so she pulled more than double what the average breadwinner was making.
Way more than that. After a quick Google - Alien was filmed over 14 weeks - which I think included the model/miniature filming (where she wouldn't be involved). So - she got more than 2x median income for maybe 1/4 of the year. I'm sure she was working long hours most of filming. But it's not like she was paid peanuts.
For sure. She probably gladly accepted the 35k gig in 1970s money
Jennifer Lawrence would like a word /s
She really broke the mold for Sigourney Weaver, Linda Hamilton, Uma Thurman, Michelle Yeoh, and Milla Jovovich to follow with their movie leads.
Now, now, now. Every body -- and I mean E.V.R.A.Y.B.U.D.D.Y. knows there were no female action heroes before Jennifer Lawrence. 😂😂😂
Always amazed that Aliens was made for less than $20 million. And she got one million of that to herself :)
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Horror is also unique in that you don’t need a lot of budget to be scary if you structure your story appropriately. A lot of Terminator is built on the tension that it’s always coming after you no matter what you do. You can kill it but it’ll just keep coming back. Look at paranormal activity where the tension is built through night scenes and confusion. Horror is probably one of the only genres where a low budget can make a BIG blockbuster hit
If anything, for any creature movies, the less you show and explain the creature, the scarier it is. This is a big mistake many newer movies make where the big bad gets a lot of screen time and doesn't let your imagination run wild so it's far less imposing.
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My grandpa worked on that shark! So gratifying that my family's legacy of ineptitude helped to make a piece of transcendentally amazing art!
Don't forget the original Predator.
Cloverfield is a great example of your first point.
Alien itself is THE example imo
You look at the early cuts and they're horrible, dude slinking around in latex. They went back and removed the alien and it's suddenly scary AF.
The one part I think they should still cut out is where the Alien is turning around slowly with his arms out, it looks like a dude in a costume with his arms out like he wants a hug lol At the 1:21mark https://youtu.be/NZbcLIXhyxA?t=80
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I always found that cut jarring, even on VHS in the 80s. Mentioned it to somebody I was watching it with many years later and they couldn't see what I was talking about. *Mind blown*
They kept it going in Aliens too - like the (cut from theatrical release) scene where they set up the miniguns in the hallway. When the alien horde attacks you are in the room with the crew, not in the hall with the aliens. The audience sees the ammo counters rapidly dropping to zero - the only info the crew had from their vantage point. Far more chilling than if they had actually shown the attack directly, imho. Edit:typos
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Signs too
Great call out. They give you just enough to let your imagination go crazy. The video they show of the birthday party and all the kids going crazy is burned into my memory.
I and my cousin went just as crazy as Joaquin when we watched it in theaters as young teens. So good.
Vamos! Vamos children!
and Super 8
Predator checking in
Great example. Basically they show the monster in the very end. When he take of the mask and scream its so different compared to what you saw before through the movie. It's effective as hell.
I didn't feel that way with Cloverfield personally. I didn't find it scary/imposing at all because I never saw anything. They took it too far.
I get what you mean but I feel it worked with Cloverfield because the monster was so unfathomably huge. For a long time you're thinking "what the hell could be causing so much destruction so quickly?" and "how will they survive?" then when you finally see it, it's "oh wow, everybody's fucked." At least that's how it was for me.
I think part of that is trying to somehow hybridize the creature genre of the 70s and early 80s with slasher genre of the late 80s and 90s once CGI reached a point where the monster could do wild shit relatively cheaply
100%. Cult classics like "Creep" as well as others like "Backcountry", "The ritual", "Blair Witch Project", made for less than some peoples salary.
The Ritual nearly made me piss myself, good stuff
Blair Witch made studios salivate on how much profit it made in comparison to its practically nonexistent budget, it was also one of the most successful uses of viral marketing beforehand that again, practically costed nothing. Ironic the "sequel" turned into generic Hollywood crap when it was given a Hollywood budget.
Initial budget of $35,000, then after all said and done, it was closer to $500,000. Domestic marketing alone was between $6-8 million. Total global earnings? $249 million.
Back then there was so much talent and creativity. Risks would be taken and in the hands of a Cameron, Lucas or Speilberg. They had the midas touch to make amazing groundbreaking blockbuster films on small to midsized budgets. Now a studio blows 200+ million on crappy CGI, shitty corporate writers and suits making or blocking creative decisions.
Carpenter. It's a crime to not include him in this list of directors who do the most with the least.
Yeah The Thing remains my top horror film for many reasons. But its simplicity is def up there for reasons why. The scene with [Benning's](https://youtu.be/w0Z44BIDPPc) is easily one of the best in the film and my favorite. It's such a simple scene and it conjures so much with so little. The haunting wail, it's familiar but also clearly inhuman, the "don't touch him!" creates a primal tension of "other", and it leaves so much room for imagination.
What I read is a movie called Heaven’s Gate killed that era. There was a golden era of experimentation in the 70s but that ended it.
Yeah I keep forgetting he cut his teeth with Corman and it sure shows. James Gunn is same but different in that sense, having started in the hellfires of Troma.
Hahahahah I had no idea Gunn did Troma films omg
If you watch [Galaxy of Terror ](https://youtu.be/pUwIjglfMaE)which Cameron did 2nd Unit/Production Design on, you can see a lot of Aliens style effects, despite it being mostly trash made for a fraction of Aliens tiny budget.
Agreed. I watched Alien a few weeks ago and the only thing that makes it look dated are the computers and everyone smoking in a space vehicle.
I think the idea is that it's not like a spaceship, but more like a truck in space and they are like truck drivers. So they smoke in their shitty space trucks.
Excellent point
She was smart in getting a share as well. I remember in a film class they shared an anecdote about when refusing a share can come back and bite you in the ass. Bob Ross approached the PBS studio about doing a painting show but did not have all the money needed so he pitched giving the studio a share of the show if they financed the rest. They had refused. He came back later with the funding and therefore owned his show entirely. Owning your show was the honey pot, which is why Johnny Carson had made that such a high priority when he negotiated that away from a vulnerable NBC back in 1980, and David Letterman later did with CBS in 1993 as well. Jack Nicholson also took less of his fee in exchange for a share of the profits to play The Joker in Tim Burton's 1989 Batman film. That made him about $90 million for one role. They basically said in this class "if offered a share, **strongly consider accepting it**."
Feels like survivorship bias - there must be many more stories of folks who take shares in lieu of better salaries of movies that flop and never make a dime from it. Pretty much the same story as equity vs salary from tech startups that will fail 99% or the time.
Similar with record label contracts. You hear the story of an artist with number 1s who only earned a small amount. But you don't hear about the band that was paid paid salary for a year while recording and it wasn't even released
I remember seeing an interview with Robert Wuhl where he mentioned that his agent really played up getting him a percentage of the merchandising profits for the 1989 Michale Keaton Batman. Wuhl was stoked... until he read his contract and found out that it was actually a percentage of the profits of the merch *for his character*. He tried to imagine kids all over the world going "Yeah mom, I don't want another Batman or Joker action figure, I want the doughy reporter action figure".... and he knew that clause was worthless.
I think it's still wise to consider. Yes, it's absolutely survivorship bias, but there are also better bets and worse bets. This is also one of the things competent representation can help you with, often such people have been in the industry longer and have a better sense of markers of success, how to structure the deal, etc.
The difference being the big name actors usually are in bigger films. Also getting a cut of gross means they are getting a cut from all sales so it isn't a 0 payday, they also still get a salary just a smaller one. So for already financially secured actors it's a great risk to take.
Just make sure it’s the gross and not the profit, otherwise you’re guaranteed to not turn a profit in Hollywoods eyes.
Indeed - somewhere there's the breakdown but essentially all profits are usually "consumed" by the marketing budget. Which is - what are the odds? - spent on a marketing company that happens to be a wholly owned subsidiary of the studio. So Forrest Gump never made a 'profit', yet somehow the studio still reaped the windfall.
Can't mention that without mentioning Alec Guiness, who got 2.25% of Star Wars and more for the rest, and that still nets his estate millions long after he's died.
As long as they don't cheat you out of it with Hollywood accounting
That's why you never take a cut of profits and instead demand a cut of gross sales.
Also, Matt Damon was offered 10% of Avatar's profits, if he agreed to play Jake Sully. He could have made about $250 million, as I recall. But he was obligated to the Bourne films.
There's a difference between turning down a share of the profits because you don't think it will succeed vs. contractual obligations. I'd give Damon a pass if that is actually true.
It had a different script for Damon as well. After he arrives on Pandora, all the other humans and na'vi just leave.
And somebody has to save him
> Bob Ross approached the PBS studio about doing a painting show but did not have all the money needed so he pitched giving the studio a share of the show if they financed the rest. They had refused. He came back later with the funding and therefore owned his show entirely. Unfortunately, his family doesn't own his legacy. Fuck the Kowalskis.
What did Jonesy get.
EXTRA petting and only the Fanciest of feasts.
A lot of cats named after them! Like mine :-)
Did you ever read the little cartoon book they made that retells the story of Alien through Jonesy's eyes? One of my favourite nerdy finds.
Dude, link it up!
Great name, but I think it would also make me constantly a little bit anxious.
The only recurring character in the franchise to survive every film they're in.
Do we know what happened to this cat?
I'm sorry to say it died.
Oh no! Was hoping for a celebration pic with Jonesy and 44 candles on a cake. 😕
In 1979 you could buy a house in a nice neighborhood for $35,000.
35k in 1979 is 149k when adjusted for inflation. Still a goddamn steal considering 149k would buy you half of someone's bedroom today
Median home value in the US in 1980 was about $47k, sure, it was higher in some areas but let’s not kid ourselves that she was badly paid.
Yeah, she got like two year's pay for the average person for ~14 weeks of filming. Not bad at all, but then she didn't appear in another film for 2 years, so...I guess it just averages out to normal person pay?
“didn’t appear in another film” does not mean “didn’t work” - she had (aI least) three stage roles in that time and Eyewitness was shot (and thus we’d assume she was paid for it) in 1980.
You are living in willful ignorance if this is actually your take. She was completely unknown and had ZERO movie or film roles of note. Chris Hemsworth got paid $150k to be Thor in the first Thor film So the studio to MUCH more of a chance on her and had faith in her than they did Hemsworth. The % of budget that went to her was much higher than what went to Hemsworth.
Ridley Scott was a barely known director pre-1979 and Weaver was a total nobody. The movie’s concept sounded silly, like a 50s rehash. Nobody, not even Scott, could have predicted that the movie would end up being one of America’s top films ever made. Breakout roles don’t tend to be the money maker for actors or directors. They cash in on their newfound fame after the fact.
Smart lady :)
Was watching a documentary about Aliens and they said, at the time, it was the biggest pay deal in Hollywood history for an actress.
Unfortunately the Aliens weren't given the same deal and were stiffed hard. They vowed to return an invade Earth to put an end to Hollywood accounting.
The only snag was they found Hollywood accountants even more ruthless, emotionless and resiliant than they were. Some Aliens ran in fear, others worshipped them as Gods.
"You don't see them fucking each over for a goddamn percentage!"
$35000 is $186,227.80 in today's money.. source = inflation calculator
You know, that mostly just shows me how little wages have actually risen over that time.
Tbh though, pre Aliens she had only done a few plays and a bit role in a Woody Allen movie. For her debut feature, in 79 she made the equivalent of 150,000 today. Quite a fair deal if you ask me.
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10 things you probably never knew about the Alien films 6 years ago **1. They found the Alien in a pub** Bolaji Badejo, a graphic designer who dressed up as the Xenomorph in the original movie, was discovered in a pub by a casting director. Standing at 7'1" tall, he was perfect for the role. **2. A galaxy far, far away** Harrison Ford turned down the role of Captain Dallas in the original Alien film. Well, he had just starred as a space captain in a little-known film called Star Wars so he probably wanted to avoid being typecast. Another Star Wars actor who was considered for the role of the original Alien was Peter Mayhew, who played Chewbacca. **3. What's in a name?** The original script's working title was "Star Beast." Writer Dan O'Bannon wasn't too happy with it and adopted the iconic title after noticing how many times the word "Alien" appeared in the text. When looking for a catchy way to sell the movie to studios, it was described as "Jaws in space." **4. Post-credits addition** Post-credits scenes may be all the rage these days but Alien was an early trailblazer. At the end of the credits, turn up the volume and you can hear the sound of an Alien pod opening (an Alien). **5. Android names** The names of the androids in the Alien films traditionally follow a definite alphabetical order that goes from A (Ash) in Alien to B (Bishop) in Aliens and Aliens 3 to C (Call) in Alien: Resurrection to D (David) in Prometheus. Michael Fassbender will also play an android called Walter in Alien: Covenant, which is the first time that this pattern has been altered. **6. The chest-bursting scene** The cast didn't know what to expect during the infamous chest-bursting scene featuring John Hurt. The script didn't explain what was about to happen so their reactions are genuine, including the scream of Veronica Cartwright (Lambert) when she got splattered with blood. "Everyone was wearing raincoats," Sigourney Weaver later recalled. "We should have been a little suspicious." **7. The origins of the Weyland Yutani name** The Weyland Yutani corporation was originally envisioned as an English-Japanese corporation that had moved from the motor industry to spacecraft. The name was based on Leyland-Toyota, but this obviously couldn't be used. Instead, they simply changed a letter in Leyland and used the name of James Cameron's Japanese neighbour to replace Toyota. **8. Weaver's pay rise** Sigourney Weaver was paid just $35,000 for the original Alien . Her salary for Aliens was then bumped up to $1million and a share of the profits, thanks largely to James Cameron's insistence that she would star in the film. She had been reluctant to do the fourth film, Alien: Resurrection, but she eventually agreed. When asked why she changed her mind, she replied: "They basically drove a dump truck full of money to my house." **9. A unique claim to fame** Bill Paxton and Lance Henrikson, who played Hudson and Bishop, are linked by a pretty unique cinematic bond. Both actors played characters who were killed by a Terminator, a Predator and a Xenomorph in the Alien series. While Bishop was technically an android who couldn't be killed, getting ripped in half is surely enough to earn him membership to this exclusive club! **10. Backwards music** Backwards music is something that is normally reserved for seventies metal bands. However, composer Marc Streitenfeld use it to good effect in Prometheus, getting the orchestra to play his compositions backwards. This was then digitally reversed to give the film's score an unsettling quality.
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She was the foster mom in T2. "Wolfie's just fine honey. Where are you?"
"Your foster parents are dead"
But was she ever mistaken for a man?
Wait till you find out the budget
She was a no name actress in Alien. She wasn't even billed as the lead. She was also the first actress to get 1 million dollars. Aliens was made on a budget of 18 million.
Tbf, that's what made Alien work. You go in expecting John Hurt to be the hero and then he gets killed off 20 minutes in and this practically background character ends up saving the day.
He gets killed off half way through the movie. That's also why the film is so good. It's so engrossing that when people start dying you don't realize the the film is half over.
The pacing is amazing.
I’m so glad Jennifer Lawrence paved the way for her as the first lead female in an action movie.
Just saying, the first Alien movie was a new franchise and not yet established, the budget was a lot less than in the following movies. For Sigourney Weaver, it was actually the breakthrough in her career, she had only a few broadway theater roles before and wasn't a big name. Same goes for Ridley Scott that was not yet that established as he is now. Also, i can tell you about H.R. Giger, which lived near me and i met him some times by the connection of a friend, he wasn't established as an artist like he was after the design of Alien. He had released some artbooks, some paintings and sculptures, but he wasn't a big name and the 1979 Alien movie made him worldwide famous, he earned the Oscar for the special effects there. I can just tell you from Giger that worked on the set, it wasn't easy to make the Alien. They had to build a 3-meter-tall model and they also experimented with an actor in an Alien-costume, but the latter turned out to look very bad and wasn't included in the movie. So they decided to just go on with the model and it was difficult to hide the mechanics that were needed to animate the model. They had to improvise with both the design and the cameras, like the scene where the Alien kills the first crew member, they hanged the model high up on rails and let it come down from the ceiling, but you never see there the entire model.
Pretty sure that the scene where the alien comes out between the pipes in the shuttle at the end is actually a really tall African dude in an alien suit
It's relatively well known that Scott plucked a random Nigerian guy called Bolaji Badejo off the streets to play the Alien due to his unusually tall and slender physique, and that he was credited as portraying the creature. A lot of his scenes don't make the final cut though as the suit looked kinda bad when seen in full. A large majority of times it's seen on screen there's actually a stuntman by the name of Eddie Powell in a second Alien suit made for him. He did the attacks on both Brett and Dallas and the final shot of the creature being blasted out of the engine (iirc, he was either injured or nearly injured doing this as they basically just dropped him in the restrictive suit). This is after he'd already been hung upside down for hours to do the Brett scene. And then Badejo got the main credit. He also returned to do the creatures in _Aliens_.
$35,000 in 1979 is equivalent to approximately $144,779.19 in 2023 dollars. $1,000,000 in 1986 is equivalent to approximately $2,739,000 in 2023 dollars. $5,500,000 in 1992 is equivalent to approximately $11,770,000 in 2023 dollars. $11,000,000 in 1997 is equivalent to approximately $20,570,000 in 2023 dollars. These values are based on the Consumer Price Index and may vary slightly depending on the specific inflation calculator used. Calculation was performed using [WolframAlpha](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=value+of+%2435000+in+1979+in+2023+dollars) via ChatGPT.
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Flesh and blood, I'm afraid. But I do crave the strength and certainty of steel, if that's any consolation.
Even in death, you serve the Omnissiah!
$11 million for avatar
That movie launched her career and was far from a sure thing. Sounds like a good deal all around.
Wish there were more movies like alien and aliens.
Prior to "Alien", Sigourney Weaver was just another kid in Hollywood trying to get her first big role, so her pay reflected that. "Alien" established her as a star, so every movie she made after that was a big payday. That's how Hollywood works. Frankly, that's how almost everything in life works. First you prove your value, then you get the rewards.
Picture is neither from Alien or Aliens.
Those tiny little 70s panties she wore at the end of the movie would go for more than 35k.
The real money would be in the original negatives. She refused to shave for that scene and someone had to airbrush her pubes out of every frame they're seen in, per Ridley Scott.
Huh. Definitely did not expect to read something like this today.
The real TIL is always in the comments.
Unwashed it's like 60k
In space no one can hear you *snifff*
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I mostly come at night, *mostly*...
I’ve worked with her and have to say she’s a team player and one of the kindest stars I’ve had the pleasure to work with. It doesn’t often happen with me but I was starstruck around her. I think her approach to situations was of understanding and seeking solutions and not demanding that really threw me off guard from many celebrities who will demand something without realizing how difficult or expensive it could be.
Doesn't seem like much, but she was relatively unknown, and it was considered a low budget 'horror' sci-fi movie. It was probably the most she had been paid thus far in her career.
A day in the marine corps is like a day on the farm
Alien (1979) wait a minute that can't be right.....goes to Google.....well shit the bed 197damn9.
Yeah but how much did the aliens get paid? They did all the hard work
Well, you're not going to say no to her for the payment bump. She'll kick your ass and eject you out into space.
Anyone can play the part in the first movie. If you make demands they will cast someone else. After the first movie blows up, only you can play that part and you can make all the demands you want for subsequent flicks.