ALIENS Director James Cameron Reveals Crazy Story Of How He Got Sigourney Weaver To Return As Ripley

ALIENS Director James Cameron Reveals Crazy Story Of How He Got Sigourney Weaver To Return As Ripley

Avatar: The Way of Water director James Cameron has revealed how he secured Sigourney Weaver for Aliens, and it involved telling Arnold Schwarzenegger's agent quite the little white lie. Check it out!

By JoshWilding - Nov 25, 2022 09:11 PM EST
Filed Under: Alien
Source: GQ (via SFFGazette.com)

We've known for some time that Sigourney Weaver very nearly didn't star in Aliens, and had the actress missed out on the critically acclaimed sequel...well, her career would have looked quite a bit different. 

During a recent interview (via SFFGazette.com), Avatar: The Way of Water director James Cameron revealed that, when he wrote Aliens alongside Walter Hill and David Giler, he was under the belief that Weaver had already signed up to star. In reality, Fox had no option in place for her to return, and with Weaver asking for $1 million to return...well, the studio wasn't happy. 

While Cameron was willing to pay her what she wanted, the studio wasn't and neither side was willing to budge. As a result, the filmmaker made a call to Arnold Schwarzenegger's agent to let him know he was writing Ripley out of the movie and retooling it for the Terminator star. Wouldn't that have been something? 

Well, the twist in this tale is that the director knew Arnie's agent worked at the same agency as Weaver's...

"I called up Lou Pitt, Arnold’s agent, and I said, ‘Lou, we’re kind of over this. So, we’ve decided that we really like the story and all the Marine Corps characters and the world we’ve created and everything. And really, we’ve thought about it, and we really just don’t need Sigourney.'"

"'I’ve created all these characters, and my pride of authorship tells me I should go ahead with this, and we’ll just cut her out of it, and we’ll just cut her character out of it. We won’t recast it; I’ll just rewrite it. So, I’m going to start on that tonight.'"

"Now, did I have any intention of doing that whatsoever? No, not at all," Cameron admits. "But I happen to know that Lou is at the same agency as Sigourney’s agent, who was in New York. And I knew that the second he hung up with me, he called him and said, ‘Sign Sigourney now.’ And guess what? The deal was done in 12 hours after that."

"So, I never wrote a word of that hypothetical story that I said I was going to do, that I had no intention of writing anyway," he concluded. "Anyway, it worked, and Sigourney got her million bucks, and everyone was happy."

Cameron and Weaver continued working together in the years that followed, including in Avatar and the upcoming Avatar: The Way of Water. As for Schwarzenegger, the Predator star came close to starring in various Alien projects over the years, but they never quite came to fruition. Now, that franchise is being retooled as a TV series by Noah Hawley. 

Check out the full interview with Cameron in the player below. 
 

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JFerguson
JFerguson - 11/25/2022, 9:22 PM
Gotta hand it to him, the man knows how to play his 4D chess.

Makes me wonder if there’s a long con he’s playing with all these Avatar sequels. Or if he’s really that shut off from the movie-going audience and doesn’t realize they never asked for these sequels to be made
Shroombeast
Shroombeast - 11/25/2022, 11:17 PM
@JFerguson - Avatar sequels are a passion project for him, he's doing them because he wants to do them, not because he thinks anyone else wants to.
regularmovieguy
regularmovieguy - 11/26/2022, 12:09 AM
@JFerguson

“Or if he’s really that shut off from the movie-going audience and doesn’t realize they never asked for these sequels to be made”

Clown statement.
DetBullock
DetBullock - 11/26/2022, 5:25 AM
@JFerguson - Apparently the new trailer is tracking very well with the kind of audience that isn't on social media, which is the kind of audience that got Top Gun 2 to make boatloads of money.

Yeah, us nerds (movie or otherwise) aren't the largest part of the audience, shocker.
TastyChimera
TastyChimera - 11/27/2022, 1:22 PM
@JFerguson - um, practically everyone that saw the first and enjoyed it is excited about the next instalments. Just because you found an echo chamber where you found some like-minded people? Doesn’t mean you represent all of us.
TheMandalorian
TheMandalorian - 11/25/2022, 9:56 PM
Asshole.
TCronson
TCronson - 11/26/2022, 7:02 AM
@TheMandalorian - you.
IronGenesis
IronGenesis - 11/25/2022, 10:06 PM
Some folks in some mediums you just never bet against…they always bring it home.

Jordan…Brady…Cameron.

dude just makes it happen when it needs to happen in virtually everything he touches.
Fogs
Fogs - 11/26/2022, 3:20 AM
@IronGenesis - takes a little while but happens 🤣
PartyKiller
PartyKiller - 11/25/2022, 10:37 PM
The Avatar movies can't make enough money to match the money Cameron failed to make by being inactive most of the last 20+ years.
minato808
minato808 - 11/26/2022, 2:49 AM
What a shitty thing to do he could have leverage the studio but instead he threatens the actor. Another reason not to like this guy.
NoAssemblyReqd
NoAssemblyReqd - 11/26/2022, 6:36 AM
@minato808 - This anecdote is a little weird. Cameron says he scared Weaver’s agent into submission and yet she still got what the studio didn’t want to pay her.
TCronson
TCronson - 11/26/2022, 7:01 AM
@minato808 - I see you are not very bright individual, are you?
IronMan616
IronMan616 - 11/26/2022, 7:43 AM
@minato808 - did you not read the article?
TastyChimera
TastyChimera - 11/27/2022, 1:28 PM
@minato808 - try reading the article next time. There was no actor threatening. Whatsoever. He was protecting his shooting star. That was Sigourney Weaver.. the studio did not want to pay her the same as the men on the cast, and yet you small minded twits still find a way to hate someone for doing a good thing. The monsters in the story? Are the studio executives. Not James Cameron. Try hating people for legitimate reasons next time...
ObserverIO
ObserverIO - 11/26/2022, 4:16 AM
Big gamble. Wouldn't it have been more beneficial for Arnie's agent to keep it quiet?
Then he would have had to rewrite it and replace Ripley with a hulking male instead of simply recasting.
IronMan616
IronMan616 - 11/26/2022, 7:45 AM
We need more Ripleys and less She-Hulks.
xfan320
xfan320 - 11/26/2022, 8:20 AM
Lil' Jimmy Cameron from down the block has done alright for himself...


More goofy Space Marines getting killed in horrible ways, please?

Avatar 2 BETTER deliver the GOODS!!!
marvel72
marvel72 - 11/26/2022, 9:04 AM
Aliens is such a good movie, not sure which one is better out of this and Alien, they're both great in their own way.
Chewtoy
Chewtoy - 11/26/2022, 9:41 AM
Something is missing from the story…. If the studio didn’t want to pay Weaver $1m, then how did this call to her agency change that?

I could see if it made Weaver drop her price to get cast, but he says she got her $1m.
marvel72
marvel72 - 11/26/2022, 3:37 PM
Nightcrawler1
Nightcrawler1 - 11/26/2022, 4:19 PM
@marvel72 - still my favourite movie - some straight up legendary sequences/shots
marvel72
marvel72 - 11/27/2022, 7:30 AM
@Nightcrawler1 - The one with Newt in the water gets me everytime,it's f*ckin amazing.
Neo3
Neo3 - 11/27/2022, 12:04 PM
Nice one Cameron, where did you learn to talk. It is SHE not HE.

"he called him and said" Didn't Cameron mean to say "he called her and said" last I checked Weaver is a woman.
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