Some directors just can’t stop futzing with their own work. George Lucas may be the most famous tinkerer, thanks to Special Edition re-releases and subtle edits to his Star Wars films over the past 50 years. But James Cameron is also a proud perfectionist; he’s delivered multiple director’s cuts of films like Terminator 2: Judgment Day and The Abyss, and in 2023 defended the controversial AI-upscaled 4K transfers of True Lies and Titanic.
Now, Cameron may have a new version of 1986’s sci-fi horror thriller masterpiece Aliens in the works. This one, at least, sounds promising, because Cameron says he’s thinking about — or threatening to, depending on your point of view — convert his action-heavy sequel to Alien into stereoscopic 3D. Cameron is a famous proponent of 3D movie technology; his Avatar franchise helped usher in a new wave of 3D filmmaking, and he’s created passion-project documentaries like Ghosts of the Abyss in 3D.
In an interview with Letterboxd for his new 3D concert film Billie Eilish — Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D), Cameron says Aliens in 3D may be next.
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“Aliens is a creature of its time,” Cameron said. “We are thinking about converting Aliens [to 3D], because I know now that the tools are so much better than they were for creating depth maps. We’re probably going to wind up converting Aliens, which will be a fun experience. That film seems to be evergreen. People still go back to it a lot.”
Cameron’s done 3D conversions before for films like Titanic and Terminator 2. He also directed a 3D mini-sequel to the latter in the form of T2-3D: Battle Across Time, a discontinued attraction for Universal Studios. So if anyone is in the position to get the most out of a 3D conversion of Aliens, it’s Cameron.
When and if Aliens 3D will ultimately happen is up to Cameron’s schedule, which is currently occupied with making Avatar 4 and 5, as well as Ghosts of Hiroshima, a movie about the U.S. World War II atomic bombing of Japan.