Hollywood Urban Legend About The Film 'Aliens' Is True And Director James Cameron Gives The Lowdown On What Happened
Director James Cameron is called 'The King of the World' for a reason. Between his innovative achievements in special effects, brilliant story crafting prowess, and ability to create immersive worlds through film making, there is very little he can't accomplish. But Cameron's ability to get the right people to understand his vision might have put him on the map early on.
In a recent interview with CinemaBlend, the famed director finally confirmed one of the coolest urban legends to come out of Tinsel Town. Rumor had it, that when James Cameron was pitching his concept for the sequel to Ridley Scott's Alien to 20th Century Fox, he convinced the producers to hire him with nothing more than a whiteboard, a marker, one word, and the rest is cinematic history.
Yeah, it's true. It just popped into my mind in the moment. It was actually on the back of a script, or some kind of presentation document. It might've been the treatment. I can't remember. I was sitting with the three producers, and we were in the office of the then-head of 20th Century Fox. And I said, 'Guys, I got an idea for the title. And it goes like this.' And I wrote, 'Alien' in large block letters. And I put an S on the end. I showed it to them. I said, 'I want to call it Aliens, because we're not dealing with one. Now we're dealing with an army, and that's the big distinction. And it's very simple and very graphic.' And I said, 'But here's what it's going to translate to.' And then I drew the two lines through it to make it a dollar sign. And that was my pitch. And apparently it worked! Because they went with the title. They never questioned it.
And, like always, Cameron made good on his promise to 20th Century Fox by creating not only a banger of a sequel which could almost be a standalone film, Aliens managed to rake in more than the original Alien and won two Oscars for Visual Effects and Sound Effects Editing in the process.
The King of the World, indeed!
