I should’ve known. Everything we’d been hearing about Ridley Scott’s planned prequels to his original Alien movie had sounded too good, too easy… I should’ve known that it was just a matter of time before things started to go wrong, and now a post on movie blog Script Flags suggests that the first major roadblock has been hit, with Scott apparently at odds with the studio over the cost and rating of the movies.
According to the report, Scott wants a $250 million budget for the first movie – more than 20th Century Fox is willing to spend, considering the success of recent entries in the franchise – and is pushing for an R-rating for the movie, instead of Fox’s preferred NC-17. The site only names the vague “sources close to the production” as the genesis of this report, so feel free to doubt the authenticity, but I have to admit that I’d personally split the difference if I had to act as Judge Judy in this dispute: Yes, $250 million seems a little pricey for a movie to resurrect a franchise that’s been allowed to completely fall apart as this one has, but I see absolutely no problem with letting Scott take the series back to its scary, dark roots with an R-rated revival… If nothing else, does anyone other than the accountants actually want to see Scott try something other than the grimmest, scariest movie he can make with this particular franchise?
Still, if he walks, Fox could always see if newly-hot-again David Fincher would want to take over, and make the Alien movie he wanted to in the first place…
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