Tag: Alien

The Case For Zendaya to Be The New Ripley In a Hard Reboot Of The Alien Franchise — Hear Me Out

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The major scifi franchises have been so strip mined that they need to either be allowed to lay fallow for a few years (maybe a decade) or they need to be totally and completely rebooted.

I’ve written about this before, but I’m drunk, feeling inspired and need to let off some non-novel related creativity so you get this post.

Ok, the only way this works is if you give Zendaya a three picture deal from the beginning. Then find the best mainstream horror director you can find and do the same thing to ensure consistency of tone across the three movies. One key thing to remember is Zendaya is tall like the original Ripley, Sigourney Weaver. So it would be easy to give the shot of Ripley in her underwear that is so famous from the first film.

Anyway, you totally reboot the franchise from the ground up, with the third movie being set on an Earth overrun by Xenomorphs. I think the thing a lot of people don’t realize is there is an entire generation of people who are oblivious to the cultural significance of the Alien movies and won’t blink an eye if they’re hard rebooted.

A lot of Olds will try to gatekeep the movies, obviously, but lulz.

This 80s Kid Feels Cheated By The Alien Franchise — I Want My Xenomorphs Running Around Modern Day Earth

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Part of getting older is realizing that the Youngs don’t have the same reference as you do as an Old. As such, there is all established IP that Hollywood could do a hard reboot of that is currently fallow that your average GenZ person wouldn’t eve an blink at.

In other words, as I’ve written before, you could very easily do a hard reboot of the Alien franchise and make a huge amount of money. Yes, a lot of Olds would be enraged that you’ve desecrated not one, but wo great movies — Alien and Aliens — but we’re old coots and so fuck us.

Here’s what I would do — lock in Zendaya to play Ripley for three movies and get the best horror director you can find as well as part of the deal. I mean, I’ve seen the origin story for Batman, like, what six times now? Why not hard reboot the Alien franchise and finally, finally fix some huge fucking structural problems with it.

Let me explain — at the end of the second movie, I was promised Xenomorphs on earth. I never got it. I want it. I was reminded of this promise when I saw the next Jurassic World movie features dinosaurs running around Rome and such. So, what you do is, you somehow rework the third installment of this new Alien franchise such at you kind of get a World War Z vibe to it with Xenomorphs taking over the world and Zendaya having to save the world.

There you go, you can make $1 billion right there.

But, let me be clear, all three movies have to be R rated with lots of horror and gore. If you choke and make them PG-13, then you’re missing the point of the franchise.

Of Alien’s Ripley, Star Wars & Modern Storytelling


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The character of Ellen Ripley in the Alien franchise was originally written as a man. I find myself working on my first screenplay and in my mind, I’m using Star Wars as my guide for structure.

But as I really begin to get into the development of this story, I realize that following the Star Wars plot too closely just doesn’t make any sense for modern audiences. People have grown so accustomed to a tough as nails woman in stories that they might feel any variation from that in a story like I’m working on is rather quaint.

Having given it even more thought, the idea now is we will have a Hero like in Star Wars, but the context is different. Or, the spin on how our Boy Hero becomes a Man Hero is different than you might expect. If things work out the way I hope, the story will have a lot of heart.

It’s a real relief that I’ve figured out how to pivot what I know about developing a novel to doing the same with a screenplay. It really speeds up the process of getting myself to the point where I can start to attempt to get past the learning curve of Final Draft.

But my main focus is going to be on the four novels I’m working on. It’s just occasionally, I need to distract myself from working on the novels so I can look at them with fresh eyes.

Zendaya & A Rebooting Of The ‘Alien’ Franchise


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As it stands, almost all the major Hollywood franchises are either bloated or dead in the water from being stripped mined. We’re reaching a moment when a reboot for any of the major scifi franchises could happen and enough people would be young enough that it wouldn’t be seen as the sacrilege that it actually was.

This brings us to the Alien franchise.

What I would do is, be ambitious. I would completely reboot the franchise from the beginning, giving all the principles a three picture deal. That would be one way to assure consistency of tone. The actress I feel would be perfect to play the new Ripley would be Zendaya. She’s tall like Sigourney Weaver and it would take the franchise into the modern world to have a POC like Zendaya playing the heroine.

I would grab a good horror director and be on my way. The new Alien and Aliens would be simply modern reinterpretations of the originals, while the third movie would be what we were promised at the very end of Aliens — it would be set on earth.

The point of all of this is it seems to me that Hollywood is so wrapped up in trying to stop 9/11 via superhero movies that they are growing more and more disconnected from their audiences and what they want. People don’t want “woke” movies and they’re growing tired of superhero movies.

It’s time Hollywood went back to basics and told good stories with mass appeal.

How To Reboot The ‘Alien’ Franchise



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Absolutely no one listens to me. The number of people who read this blog on a daily basis is barely a rounding error for places like The New York Times. But I do know some about how to tell a good story and what audiences expect.

So, let’s talk about the Alien franchise.

The existential problem with how the franchise developed is the producers made some pretty big mistakes after Aliens. Alien and Aliens are two solid films. And, really, if they hadn’t choked about showing the xenomorphs on Earth as was teased at the end of Aliens, things would have gone really well from there.

But, alas, a number of different things happened.

One, as I understand it, Sigourney Weaver started to have such power over the franchise that it kind of warped what happened to it. Also, the little girl who played Newt simply wasn’t a kid anymore by the time the third movie was being produced. Lastly, CGI simply wasn’t where it needed to be to show what everyone wanted to see — xenomorphs consuming Earth.

Here’s how I would reboot the series with all that in mind.

First, you need to remember what the whole thing is about — Alien was a horror movie. So, you get someone like Eli Roth to direct a totally rebooted series. Give him a three picture deal to give the rebooted franchise some much-needed consistency of tone.

Then, you cast someone like Ana de Armas as the new Ripley. Give her, too, a three picture deal.

I would then map out three movies so you had a three-movie arc like in the Dark Night series of movies. I would totally reboot the entire franchise, leaving only the look and feel of the xenomorphs the same. But the point of doing this is the movies would be fucking scary and, to the extent that Alien was gory, gory.

The premise is really strong and there’s a built-in fan base that would flock to a rebooted series if you did as I suggest. Fans like me are extremely annoyed with how the Alien franchise has totally lost its way.

Come on Hollywood, you can do better.