Some influential artists you know by name, others merely by their work. Dan O'Bannon was one of the latter. Over a career spanning almost 50 years, this writer (Alien, Lifeforce, Total Recall), director (Return of the Living Dead) and all around amazing guy helped to push the boundaries of pulp sci-fi into heady stratospheres.
O'Bannon got his start writing Dark Star, a low-budget cult sci-fi short directed by fellow USC student John Carpernter while they were still in school. Started as a short, it eventually was expanded into a feature (how they managed to get the rights from USC is a feat unto itself)
But my favorite O'Bannon project never saw the light of day. In the heady, early 1970's, director Alejandro Jodorowsky (of mind-melting El Topo & Holy Mountain fame) approached O'Bannon to script a science fiction film to rival his psychedelic classics. With Production Design by Morpheus & H.R Giger, Music Pink Floyd and starring David Carradine and Salvador Dali (in the role of the insane Emperor), Jodorowsky's version of Frank Herbert's Dune is one of those mystical 'what if's' of history that Hollywood is littered with.
Dan O'Bannon's wife had this to say last week: "My Great Heart finally lost his 30-year battle against Crohn's disease. The O'Bannon Company will go on - I have to publish the Necronomicon which he finally finished, and of course there are scripts to sell. The website was almost finished, and it will be up sometime soon."
RIP Dan. Tonight there is one less star in the sky.
RIP Dan. Tonight there is one less star in the sky.
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