After James Cameron made Aliens in 1989, he was going to team up with Alien director Ridley Scott for another Alien film project. Could you imagine Cameron and Scott developing an Alien sequel together!? That’s one of the best things that has never happened!
So why didn’t that project ever happen? Because of the 2004 movie Alien vs. Predator. This just gives us another reason to hate that film. I would’ve much rather seen a sequel made by Cameron and Scott!
Scott was not a fan of the idea behind Alien vs. Predator, which was the fifth film in the Alien franchise. He once told THR:
“I think Alien vs. Predator was a daft idea, and I’m not sure it did very well or not, I don’t know. But it somehow brought down the beast. And I said to them, ‘Listen, you can resurrect this, but we have to go back to scratch and go to a prequel, if you like.’”
Cameron later revealed that he would have written and produced the Alien sequel with Scott directing. They met and discussed the project and they wanted to do it! He explained during a Reddit AMA event:
“I don’t remember the timing exactly, but I might have been making The Abyss at that time, also for Fox. What came up was the idea of doing Alien 5. And at one point I pitched that I would write it and produce it, and Ridley would direct it, and we had lunch talking about this, and we were in violent agreement, then nothing happened.”
Cameron went on to blame Alien vs. Predator for the project not happening and even told Fox that it was a bad idea. He went on to say:
“What happened was Fox went ahead with Aliens vs. Predator and I said, ‘I really don’t recommend that, you’ll ruin the franchise, it’s like Universal doing Dracula versus The Werewolf, and then I lost interest in doing an Alien film.”
What a shame and a missed opportunity! An Alien sequel from Cameron and Scott could’ve been huge! The fans would have loved that! How in the hell would Fox want to screw up that opportunity!? Instead, Cameron was right, Aliens vs. Predator ruined the franchise. I know some people out there enjoy the Alien vs. Predator movies, but I’m not one of them.