Steven Spielberg once pitched James Cameron a terrible concept for Aliens when the sequel was being written. Despite being a huge success upon release in 1979, it took seven years for a sequel to Alien to arrive. To the surprise of many - including the director himself - Ridley Scott wasn't asked to return. Instead, James Cameron was hired to write and helm Aliens, which took Sigourney Weaver's Ripley back to LV-426 to face a horde of the titular creatures.

Aliens is considered one of the best sequels ever made, which took the premise of the original but went off in its own unique direction. The film would have a major impact on future action movies and video games - especially the Halo series - while later Alien sequels and spin-offs have consistently failed to top it. Following the surprise success of 1984's The Terminator, Aliens also cemented Cameron as a hot new director, who would certainly make good on his early promise by making some of the highest-grossing films of all time.

Related: Why Ridley Scott Didn't Direct Aliens

Cameron himself worked his way up from crafting special effects for Roger Corman-produced b-movies to becoming a director and was able to pull off Aliens' large scope for a modest budget in blockbuster terms. His decision to move from action to horror for Aliens - where Burke died in a deleted scene - for a simple stroke of genius, but during a DGA tribute to Steven Spielberg in 2011, Cameron recalled a story of meeting with the director and how he pitched him a "nice" version of the Alien for his sequel.

Spielberg Wanted Cameron To Make The Alien "Misunderstood"

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According to Cameron's recollection, he met with Spielberg about potentially working on an episode of the anthology series Amazing Stories, which the latter was producing. Cameron was writing Aliens during this period and mentioned this to Spielberg, who got excited about the direction it could take the series. Cameron recalls Spielberg saying "I know what to do!" before revealing his pitch to be "Have the Alien be misunderstood and the humans are trying to kill it as it's running around the ship!"

The idea for Spielberg's Aliens is that it would flip the original premise, as since the Xenomorph was evil in the first movie, it would be nice and "misunderstood" in the follow-up. Spielberg's simple response to hearing his pitch repeated was "Thank goodness you didn't do that!" Rather than mocking Spielberg, Cameron used this story to highlight the latter's creative process, and how his mind is always brimming with concepts and ideas. He also stated that he knew he wouldn't be involved with Amazing Stories after this meeting, claiming he couldn't be so close to Spielberg's positivity and "light" at that early stage in his career.