Some alternate-universe movies are just too tantalizing not to imagine what could’ve been, and Renny Harlin’sAlien 3is one of the most fascinating films that never happened. Harlin’s version would have taken the xenomorphs to Earth or all the way back to their home planet, something the franchise has still not done, over 30 years later. The Die Hard 2 and Cliffhanger director was once lined up to follow Ridley Scott and James Cameron on the franchise, but he ultimately left the project after deciding Fox’s approach was not the film he wanted to make.
Speaking during his masterclass panel at the Mediterrane Film Festival, moderated by Collider Editor-in-Chief Steve Weintraub, Harlin recalled the surreal moment he first realized he had landed one of Hollywood’s biggest directing jobs. The Finnish filmmaker had recently broken through with A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, but he knew taking on Alien 3 would mean following two all-time genre heavyweights.
“I was offered quite a few movies after Nightmare on Elm Street, and Alien 3 became the most interesting of them. Of course, I admired Ridley Scott’s Alien and James Cameron’s Aliens, and I was thinking, ‘Here’s Renny Harlin, 28 years old, from Finland, and I’m going to follow in the footsteps of these guys?’ So, I made a deal to do the movie for 20th Century Fox. I drove my little rental car through the studio gates, and they had a pass for me. I said, ‘I’m Renny Harlin.’ They said, ‘Welcome, Mr. Harlin. Your office is this way.’ And still, today, it brings tears to my eyes because it was an unreal moment. I thought this was absolutely going to change my life.”
Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Personality Quiz Which Sci-Fi Hero Are You Most Like? Paul Atreides · Captain Kirk · Princess Leia · Ellen Ripley · Max Rockatansky
Five iconic heroes. Five completely different ways of facing an impossible universe. One of them shares your instincts, your values, and your particular way of refusing to back down. Eight questions will tell you which one.
🏜️Paul Atreides
🖖Capt. Kirk
✊Princess Leia
🔦Ellen Ripley
🔥Max Rockatansky
01
How do you lead when the stakes couldn’t be higher? The way you lead under pressure is the most candid thing about you.
02
What is your greatest strength in a crisis? The quality that keeps you alive when everything else fails.
03
What is the thing you’d sacrifice everything else for? Your deepest motivation is your truest compass.
04
How do you relate to the people around you? Who you are to others under pressure is who you really are.
05
You’re facing a threat that no one else believes is real. What do you do? How you respond when you’re the only one who sees it defines everything.
06
What has your heroism cost you personally? Every hero pays. The question is what — and whether they’d pay it again.
07
How do you feel about the rules of the world you’re in? Every hero has a relationship with the system. What’s yours?
08
When everything is on the line, what keeps you going? The answer is the most candid thing about you.
Your Hero Has Been Identified Your Sci-Fi Hero Is…
Your answers point to the iconic sci-fi hero who shares your instincts, your values, and your particular way of facing the impossible.
Arrakis · Dune
Paul Atreides
You carry a weight most people would crumble under — the knowledge of what you’re capable of, and the burden of what you might have to become.
You see further ahead than others and you plan accordingly, even when the vision frightens you.
You are driven by loyalty to your people and a sense of destiny you didn’t ask for but can’t escape.
Paul Atreides is not simply a hero — he is someone who understands the cost of power and chooses to bear it anyway.
That gravity, that willingness to carry what others won’t, is exactly you.
USS Enterprise · Star Trek
Captain Kirk
You lead with instinct, warmth, and an absolute refusal to accept a no-win scenario — because you’ve always believed there’s a third option nobody else has thought of yet.
You take the mission seriously without ever taking yourself too seriously.
Your crew would follow you anywhere, not because you demand it, but because you’ve earned it.
Kirk’s genius isn’t tactical — it’s human. He reads people, bends rules with purpose, and wills outcomes into existence through sheer conviction.
That combination of warmth, audacity, and relentless optimism is unmistakably yours.
The Rebellion · Star Wars
Princess Leia
You are the kind of person who holds the line when everyone else is losing faith — not because you’re fearless, but because giving up simply isn’t something you’re capable of.
You lead through conviction. Your voice carries because your belief is unshakeable.
You gave up everything ordinary the moment you chose the cause, and you’ve never looked back.
Leia is not a supporting character in her own story — she is the moral centre of the entire rebellion.
That same fierce, principled, unbreakable core is what defines you.
The Nostromo · Alien
Ellen Ripley
You are not reckless, not grandiose, and not particularly interested in being anyone’s hero — you just refuse to stop when it matters.
You see threats clearly, you document the truth even when no one listens, and when the time comes you handle it yourself.
Ripley’s heroism is earned, not performed. She doesn’t have a speech — she has a flamethrower and a plan.
You share her composure under the worst possible pressure, and her refusal to pretend the monster isn’t there.
When it counts, you don’t flinch. That’s everything.
The Wasteland · Mad Max
Max Rockatansky
You have been through fire that would break most people — and what came out the other side is something the world underestimates at its peril.
You don’t ask for assist, don’t need validation, and don’t wait for anyone to tell you the rules no longer apply.
Your loyalty, when it finally arrives, is absolute — but it’s earned in silence and tested in action, not in words.
Max is not a nihilist. He is someone who lost everything and found, against his will, that he still has something worth protecting.
That bruised, stubborn, ultimately human core is exactly yours.
Renny Harlin Wanted ‘Alien 3’ on Earth — or the Xenomorph Homeworld
Harlin said the studio’s version of the sequel was going to focus on a prison ship overrun by aliens, an idea that would ultimately become the foundation of David Fincher’s film, but Harlin didn’t see the appeal of that premise, especially after the scale and invention of the first two movies.
“However, the movie that the studio wanted to make was not at all the movie that I thought we should make. They basically said, ‘We want to make a movie where we are on a prison ship, the aliens come to the prison ship, and the prisoners fight the aliens.’ And I said, ‘Why would anybody care about prisoners on a prison ship in space? What’s unique about that?’”
Instead, Harlin had two very different ideas. The first would have brought the xenomorphs to Earth, including a visual that sounds like it could have made for one hell of a teaser poster. “I had two ideas,” explained Harlin. “One idea was that the third one would be about the aliens coming to Earth. Already, I’d drawn them a poster of a cornfield where aliens are marching through the cornfield towards a white farmhouse, and the studio said, ‘Nobody’s going to believe in aliens on Earth.’ This was a little before Jurassic Park and movies like that. Then my other idea was, ‘Let’s go to where the aliens are from. Let’s find the planet where they are from and find out what they are. Are they bad guys? Are they good guys? Are they just oblivious organisms trying to protect themselves?’ They were like, ‘Nobody wants to go where the aliens are from. People want to see a prison ship.’”
Harlin remained at Fox for almost a year, but eventually reached the point where he felt he had to leave rather than direct a movie he could not stand behind. “So, I worked for almost a year on the Fox lot, and then one day… I get asked about directing, and I must say that I think that the most important thing is that you have to be honest with yourself. Have I always succeeded in that? No. But when I’m being honest with myself, that’s when I’ve had the greatest success in my life. There was a day when I decided, ‘I’m going to quit. I have nothing. I have no income, I have no future. I have no other opportunities,’ and I thought, ‘No studio will ever hire me again.’ But I went to the heads of 20th Century Fox, and I said, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t believe in this film. I’m gonna die of embarrassment if I make this movie after what Ridley Scott and James Cameron did.’ And I left.”
Walking Away Led Renny Harlin Straight to ‘Die Hard 2’
Bruce Willis holding a gun standing in the rain in Die Hard 2Image via 20th Century Fox
Rather than ending his Hollywood career, Harlin’s decision led to an even bigger opportunity at the same studio. Fox offered him a up-to-date project the next day, and he went on to direct Die Hard 2, cementing himself as one of the most stimulating action filmmakers of the era. “I thought that was it. I might as well buy a ticket back to Finland,” said Harlin. “The next day, 20th Century Fox offered me a new movie, and then I did Die Hard 2 with them, and the rest was history. But it was just because I had the guts to be honest with myself and other people and say, ‘This is not for me. I don’t know how to do it this way. It doesn’t feel right.’ And I think that’s a very, very important thing. It’s easy to kind of go with the mainstream and go with what seems popular and all that, but I think that the only real way is to be honest with yourself about what you do.”
![‘Alien 3’ Director Reveals Scrapped Plans That Would Have Changed the Franchise Forever [Exclusive]](https://theworldscreen.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Alien-3-Director-Reveals-Scrapped-Plans-That-Would-Have-Changed.jpg "‘Alien 3’ Director Reveals Scrapped Plans That Would Have Changed the Franchise Forever [Exclusive]")
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