Steven Pressfield

The thing where the alien bursts out of the guy's chest,

That was his, along with the whole face hugger thing.

That was his, too.

So he was like a really legendary guy, particularly in science fiction.

And I was kind of his junior partner.

And we did this movie for Dino DeLaRentis on a contract.

And when we were done, we thought, this is great.

This is how crazy we were.

And we invited all of our friends to the screening or something.

And when it was over, it was like death talk.

Deathly silence, you know, and I was telling you before we did this thing today, the Review and Daily Variety said, Ronald Shusett and Steven Pressfield, we hope these are not their real names for their parents' sake.

So that was definitely a bad moment.

From my point of view, it was the first time I got a movie made that I was involved with at all.

So I had to say, and a friend of mine, my friend Tony Keppelman, took me aside and said, you know, you're in the arena, man.

You're taking the blows, but you're out there doing it.

And he was absolutely right.

So in the end, I turned out to be very grateful to that, and I still am grateful to it.

But it certainly was a terrible review and kept you humble.

No.

It was, like, too painful to even think about.