You will probably not recognize the name Dan O’Bannon but for those sci-fi geeks out there you will instantly know him as the writer of the classic movie Alien.
Throughout the years, O’Bannon had worked with such greats like George Lucas and John Carpenter. His attempts to create a cinematic version of the Dune novels, which failed, led O’Bannon to team up with Ronald Shusett to write and create a world of parasitic pests in Alien which led to multiple sequels.
Besides the epic Alien, O’Bannon also wrote such movies as Blue Thunder, Lifeforce, The Return of the Living Dead [writer & director, Invaders from Mars, Total Recall, and Screamers.
[Via NY Times] “I love gore films and I grew up with ’50s monster movies,” Mr. O’Bannon told the journal Cinefantastique in 1979, speaking of the film’s origins. “The idea for the monster in ‘Alien’ originally came from a stomach ache I had.”
In 1985 Mr. O’Bannon wrote and directed “The Return of the Living Dead,” part homage to the George Romero zombie film “Night of the Living dead” and part genre spoof. In 1990 he teamed with Mr. Shusett again, among others, to write “Total Recall,” a violent, futuristic tale set partly on Earth and partly on Mars and based on a short story by Philip K. Dick. It starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sharon Stone.
