Dan O’Bannon, who’s probably best remembered as the man who wrote the screenplay for the classic sci-fi film, Alien, has passed away aged 63, following a short illness. O’Bannon first found success when he and fellow USC student, John Carpenter, worked together on a sci-fi project that turned into the wonderful cult classic, Dark Star. As well as writing the film, O’Bannon was the FX supervisor, production designer and editor on the movie, as well as appaearing as Sgt. Pinback (it was virtually a student film with no budget that expanded, so he and Carpenter did virtually everything).
His next screenplay project became the classic Alien (although he did also have time to work on the special effects for Star Wars, for fellow USC graduate, George Lucas), which redefined screen sci-fi and resulted in a wave of space-set horror movies, as well as helping to launch the entire slasher genre. Other screenplay credits include Heavy Metal, Blue Thunder, Lifeforce, Total Recall and Screamers. O’Bannon also directed the Romero parody, The Return Of The Living dead, and the HP Lovecraft adaptation, The Resurrected.
Although he had problems with his scripts often been taken away from him and rewritten, his influence can be felt all over modern sci-fi, particularly due to what he did with Alien. To lose him at such a relatively young age is undoubtedly a tragedy, and he will be missed.