William Gibson’s Original ALIEN 3 Screenplay Adapted Into A Comic Series

David Gelmini |

Nov 16, 2018

Alien 3 is generally seen as marking the start of the decline of the franchise, despite David Fincher going on to be considered one of the most talented filmmakers of our current generation. However, William Gibson originally wrote an entirely different script for Alien 3, which would have taken place on a space station inhabited by a monk-like society known as the Union of Progressive Peoples, instead of being set in a penal colony. Gibson’s screenplay was initially dropped entirely, but thanks to Dark Horse, it’s now being turned into a comic book, with the first issue just hitting stores.

William Gibson’s Alien 3 is set to run for a total of five issues, with Johnnie Christmas helping Gibson adapt the story into comic form in addition to providing the interior artwork. The covers for the series were also created by Christmas alongside a team of other talented artists, and have been collected in the gallery below.

Aside from the change in setting, one of the biggest differences between Gibson’s screenplay and the final film is that Newt and Hicks were not killed in the opening, and would instead serve as main characters throughout the story alongside Ripley and Bishop. The story also featured swarms of Xenormorphs, whereas only two appear in the film. On top of that, it should be noted that Gibson’s script originally served as an allegory for the Cold War, which was represented by the conflict between the socialist monks living onboard the Anchorpoint space station and the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. This gave his screenplay a political edge, which was largely absent from the final film.

So, although we’re never going to see Gibson’s story as it was intended to be told on the screen, we still feel that this is an important piece of horror history which deserves to be told in any format. If you’re not already reading William Gibson’s Alien 3, you should be.

External Links
Dark Horse Comics
ComiXology