David Fincher gets honest about Alien 3 and what he learned from it. After the first two were directed by Ridley Scott and James Cameron, the third Alien movie was helmed by Fincher in his directorial debut. Alien 3, which received mixed reactions from critics and audiences, finds Ripley crash-landing on a maximum-security prison populated with violent inmates, where she unwittingly brings an Alien organism. Alien 3 experienced a famously troubled production as its original director, Vincent Ward, who was fired before Fincher signed on to shoot a script that was constantly in flux.
During a recent interview at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival (via The Wrap), Fincher opened up about the troubled production of Alien 3 and spoke candidly by calling it a "truly f**ked up situation.” However, it taught him a valuable lesson and he never made the same mistake again throughout his directorial career. Read what Fincher said below:
I came out of a truly f–ked-up situation and kind of swore that I would never make the same mistake. I made a lot of brand new ones, but I’d never start something that didn’t have a script that I didn’t believe in or that I didn’t understand or that I couldn’t articulate to people. And I’d also very much learned that I wanted to make all my own mistakes instead of inheriting them from other people.
David Fincher Was Better Off After Alien 3
Fincher, by his own ission, made a mistake g on to direct Alien 3 without a finished script due to the revolving door of writers who worked on it. In turn, the script had to be constantly reworked throughout filming, resulting in a lack and cohesion and consistency in the story. However, Fincher learned a valuable lesson from the Alien 3 debacle. He's never agreed to direct another script he didn't believe in and since, he's never been a part of troubled production or flop like Alien 3.
After Alien 3, Fincher only agreed to direct projects with clear and cohesive scripts, and he soon gained acclaim with Se7en, written by the BAFTA-nominated screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker. He also went on to collaborate with Oscar-winning screenwriters like Eric Roth on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Aaron Sorkin on The Social Network, and Steven Zaillian on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. His two most recent films were also the sole visions of singular writers – Gillian Flynn wrote the novel and screenplay for Gone Girl and Mank was written by his late father Jack Fincher.
Source: The Wrap
