An O'bannon First Burst Onto the Fan- Tasy Cinema Scene with Dark Star

an O'Bannon first "I got married, had a kid and just lost burst onto the fan interest for a while in chasing that con tasy cinema scene stant Hollywood grind," O'Bannon says. "I with Dark Star was interested in my family, taking it easy which he co-wrote with and stuff. I tried to completely write down director John Carpenter and starred in movies in my own heart, because they've and subsequently with his darker version changed so much.n (co-scripted by Ronald Shusett) of the Luckily, he thought about it again and same story, Alien. The film was an imme one simple element changed his mind. "I diate hit, made stars of Sigourney Weaver haven't completely ruled Hollywood out and director Ridley Scott and is regarded because I can't think of a better way of as one of the best horror films ever. making money, n he laughs. "Two years ago O'Bannon has since had a strange I had decided to forego Hollywood, but career as a filmmaker, with Return of the lately I thought about that decision and Living Dead-which spawned numerous said, 'Wait a minute, that's stupid. There's imitations and (now four) sequels-and a lot of money there!' There's still a pro The Resu"ected his only directorial efforts ject or two of mine that I would very much to date. He has been busier as a screen like to put on the big screen. If I get lucky writer, and his work has been helmed by and sell an occasional script, I can get a many of the genre's best-known filmmak lot of cash. I can't turn my back on Holly ers: Scott, Paul Verhoeven, Tobe Hooper, wood completely, because of the possibili etc. Then, following a pair of lower-bud ties of an occasional big sale, the practical geted Canadian projects (Screamers and value of that income. I wish I could say Bleeders, a.k.a. Hemoglobin), he vanished I'm through with it, but it still has some from the movie scene. It turns out he was value to me. In the meantime, I've invest --= • disappointed by the industry, especially by ed my sincere creative heart in other pro the fact that he didn't get final cut on The jects that are a little less grandiose than a Resu"ected. Fans wondered what had hap film, but they were things that I was actu pened to the man behind the concept of ally able to do without interference. n one of the scariest movies ever made. As it Nevertheless, getting back into the turns out, he was simply living his life ... business wasn't as easy as you would & think. "When I got interested again, I was it into the actual movie. "Well, I was sur· fused and because Ronnie's and my situa cold. I was nobody in the business, plus at prised," O'Bannon says. "This credit arbi tion was so clear. There's so much going g the same time the moviemaking industry tration procedure ... The only time I did on that you have to care. You have to say, ~ itself has completely changed," he ex ever really care was on the first picture, 'Oh, my God! There goes my career, I have ~ plains. "Everybody does business at every Alien. I fought really hard for my credit to care!' Buddha says, 'Suffering comes ·~ level and all of the people have changed. there. Every movie subsequently, if some through desire,' you know? ~ So when I decided to get back to work and other writer wanted to have a credit, my "I did give them one idea [for A VP) that ~ re-enter the Hollywood mainstream, I general tendency was not to bother. Some· they did not use," O'Bannon reveals, "and :g found out it wasn't there anymore. I had to times I've had co-writers who have cared, I'll tell you what it was. The most obvious a. spend the last couple of years building up so I had to arbitrate. Don Jakoby [his co creative thing you have to solve on a movie my existence again. All of my representa· scripter on Lifeforce, Invaders from Mars like this is: What's the connection tives-my lawyer, my agent, my mana and Blue Thunder] was always concerned between the species? What they came up ger-were gone. I had to get a completely about credit. with was that Predators bred Aliens as new team. And this time they're all "What happened in the case of Alien vs. part of a complicated ritual. But my idea younger than me, so I'll die first [laughs]. " Predator was complex," he continues. was, what if the Predators are the Aliens? Yet while the filmmaking machine has "Ronnie Shusett was very concerned and In the first Alien movie, there's a part in changed significantly during the last 10 wanted me to be involved, and I said, 'OK, the end when they blow up the ship. years, O'Bannon feels the public hasn't we'll go after an arbitration, after my orig And it still has one stage left, and my even noticed. "Hollywood inside now is inal spec screenplay.' They took every· idea was that if it metamorphosed one very different from what the public sees thing they could find that had not been more time it would have become the .• on the outside," he says. "They still have filmed in the first Alien. They found a par· Predator, but they didn't use it. It was big studios making blockbusters with big ticular element from my screenplay, which good, though! My one great idea for ta stars, but boy ... right behind those block was the big pyramid. They also used the them and they didn't use it." busters, everything is different." legendary cocoon scene, which was shot Surprisingly, O'Bannon enjoyed the A few months ago, O'Bannon and Shu· but never used back then. They just took critic· and audience-maligned movie, even sett received "screen story" credit on ideas from that first script in order to put if he doesn't like the notion of Alien se Alien vs. Predator, even though they had together a story, and it was on that basis quels in the first place. "I thought AVP nothing to do with the actual script. Tums [that we got credit], and also because the was totally enjoyable, anyway. I mean, out, the filmmakers used material from situation among the guys who wrote the artistically, there isn't any excuse for any the first Alien screenplay that never made finished screenplay was so massively con· of the Alien sequels. I wrote that to be a shocks again, not just finding out that they have a Queen. When I first thought about sequelizing Alien, when that came up, I found it a difficult task, being as concerned as I am with maintaining high standards in terms of the story. I thought it was impossi ble to do. If I had done it, it would have been an entirely different movie, with only a nominal link to the origi nal. And if I'm gonna do that, I might as well call it something different." Ironically, one of the several irons O'Bannon now has in the fire is an update of a work attempted by sev eral artists before: a new and defini tive version of The Necronomicon, the "book" created by H.P. Lovecraft. According to O'Bannon, his version (based on the work of the late French author Jean-Baptiste Cohen) will be the one to end them all. "There have been a couple of books published as the Necronomicon stand-alone, without the during the last four decades," he notes. intent of doing sequels to "Well, I'm sorry to have to tell you that it. It doesn't lend itself to those books are frauds. They're not actu more movies. You're auto ally the Necronomicon. This is the first matically stuck with a time that the actual content of the Necro film that is not going to be nomicon will be widely available to the as exciting as the origi public. Unfortunately, the author, Jean nal. My opinion is that if Baptiste Cohen, is deceased. He died very you're gonna do a sequel, young, at 25, in 1999, and didn't quite fin· you're still under the ish this particular dissertation. He wrote same obligation to be as most of it, but his death interrupted its interesting and original completion. I had to finish the last part." as the first story, what· But what exactly is the Necronomicon? ever it was. Some movies "It's a grimoire, or a book of black magic lend themselves to se spells," O'Bannon explains. "It's legendar quels, and they make ily known as the blackest of them all. It good follow-ups to 'em. In was written by an Arabic scholar. The cen this case, a valid sequel tral theme of the Necronomicon is that our to Alien would have been world, the Earth, was once inhabited by more different from the another race, who in practicing black original than they have magic lost their foothold here and were been. I mean, there would expelled. Yet they continued to live out have had to be a connec· side our realm, waiting to take possession tion of some sort to the of the Earth again.

Load more