Star Wars came to the rescue

Initially, nobody was interested in ‘Alien’, and it bounced between lots of studios.

Eventually, writer Dan O’Bannon made a deal with Brandywine Productions, who had links to 20th Century Fox, though found that the company were asking for an inordinate amount of rewrites.

However, once a little-known film called ‘Star Wars’ was released in 1977, proving that sci-fi movies could be financially successful, Dan was left alone and was able to fully realise his vision.