The Big Picture
- James Cameron and Lightstorm Entertainment are releasing the Aliens Collector’s Edition on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, HD, and SD, allowing viewers to bring the Alien Queen home this holiday season.
- Alongside Aliens, other legendary works by Cameron, such as The Abyss, True Lies, Titanic, Avatar, and Avatar: The Way of Water, will also be releasing special editions on the same dates.
- Cameron famously pitched the film Aliens by writing the word “ALIEN” on a piece of paper and adding a dollar sign, showing his clear vision and determination to make the movie, which ultimately became one of the best sequel films ever made.
You can bring the Alien Queen home with you this holiday season as James Cameron and Lightstorm Entertainment announce the release of Aliens Collector’s Edition on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, HD, and SD. The movie will drop on digital on December 12, before hitting shelves in physical form in a 4K Ultra HD Combo Pack (4K UHD + Blu-ray + Digital Code) next year, on March 12, 2024.
The launch comes alongside a number of Cameron’s other legendary works — The Abyss, True Lies, Titanic, Avatar, and Avatar: The Way of Water — which will all be releasing special editions on the same dates. Cameron’s producing partner Jon Landau offered some more details on the work that has gone on in bringing these legendary films to life in the highest quality.
“We really wanted to deliver the best possible experience at home so viewers could immerse themselves both in the films and the journeys we went through to make them.”
Did James Cameron Pitch ‘Aliens’ With a Dollar Sign?
Cameron was warned about the prospect of making a sequel to an already-classic film by a legendary director in the form of Ridley Scott, but he admitted his “fanboy” side got the better of him, and he so clearly had a vision of what he wanted to make, that he had to pursue it. Of course, Cameron famously pitched the film — in a story once deemed apocryphal, but since confirmed by the director — by going into a pitch meeting with the executives of 20th Century Fox and writing the word “ALIEN” on a piece of paper, before drawing a dollar sign at the end of the word as his way of proposing the studio green-light Aliens, as he told Empire Magazine:
“I had lunch with a bigshot producer when I was about to start Aliens who said, ‘This is a no-win for you. If your movie’s good, Ridley will get the credit. If it’s bad, it’s all you. It’s a career ender.’ I said, ‘Yeah, buuuuuut… I like it.’ I was maybe a dumbass fanboy, but I could see it so clearly in my head that I just had to go make it. And yes, it’s true. I was in a meeting with the studio head and the executive producers, and I turned my script over and on the blank side of the last page I wrote ALIEN. Then I drew an S on the end. Then I drew two vertical lines through the S and held it up to show them. Maybe it was just Pavlovian conditioning when they saw the $ sign connected closely to the word ‘Alien’. Or maybe it was the confidence I projected. But they said yes.”
Cameron’s prediction for his film proved to be absolutely correct — it would go on to be regarded as one of the best sequel films ever made (something he managed to do again with Terminator 2: Judgment Day), and made almost ten times its budget back, with $18.5 million becoming $180 million worldwide.
Aliens will drop in 4K UHD on Digital on December 12, with pre-orders available from November 20, before hitting shelves on March 12, 2024.
Aliens
Decades after surviving the Nostromo incident, Ellen Ripley is sent out to re-establish contact with a terraforming colony but finds herself battling the Alien Queen and her offspring.
- Release Date
- July 18, 1986
- Director
- James Cameron
- Cast
- Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, William Hope, Jenette Goldstein, Carrie Henn, Paul Reiser, Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton
- Rating
- R
- Runtime
- 137 minutes
- Main Genre
- Sci-Fi