Event Horizon director reveals HILARIOUS studio reaction to movie

Event Horizon director Paul W.S. Anderson has revealed how shocked Paramount were at the first cut of his sci-fi horror movie.

Released in 1997, Event Horizon was a failure at the box office as it only grossed $42 million from a budget of around $60 million.

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Critically, reviews were mixed to negative, as although praise was given for the visuals, the plot and characters didn't prove popular among the critics.

However, Event Horizon soon became a cult hit, particularly as the DVD market exploded.

The movie is known for its graphic depiction of gore and violence as it concerns a spaceship led by captain Laurence Fishburne that comes across another ship that has, spoiler alert, gone into a hell dimension.

Paramount were stunned.

“Someone actually said to me, ‘We’re the studio that makes Star Trek!’” Anderson told Variety.

“They weren’t only horrified by my movie; they felt I was besmirching Star Trek somehow because I was also in space and doing all this terrible stuff.

"I think Paramount was a little shocked. It had all this gross horror and all these disturbing images. I don’t think anyone at the studio had really seen that stuff before because I was shooting in England.

"Generally, people from the studio watch what the main unit shoots, but all of the horror stuff was being done second unit, directed by me on the weekends. I don’t think anyone at the studio actually watched the second unit material, so they hadn’t seen all the impalings and all the other people getting their eyes out and the intestines. I got a lot of tough notes."

Event Horizon poster

The Event Horizon poster features a picture of the ship itself with the tagline 'INFINITE SPACE, INFINITE TERROR'.

Anderson explains that, at the time, he was not happy with the choice of imagery.

"You could throw a plate at the screen and randomly select a better image to be the poster than what we ultimately ended up with," he insisted.

"But it was just a rushed process. You think about Alien and the very elaborate promotional campaign that movie had, where they started with an alien egg on teaser posters.

"We didn’t have the benefit of any of that."