Video! We dig into WTF Happened to the 2000 sci-fi horror film Supernova

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

A sci-fi horror film directed by Walter Hill (producer of ALIEN and the genius behind THE WARRIORS) and starring the likes of James Spader, Angela Bassett, Robert Forster, Lou Diamond Phillips, Peter Facinelli, Robin Tunney, and Wilson Cruz sounds like it should be something amazing. The film was SUPERNOVA (WATCH IT HERE), released back in the year 2000 – and if you've seen it, you know that it didn't turn out to be amazing. In fact, it was such a mess that Hill took his name off of it: the credited director is Thomas Lee, a pseudonym that was used because viewers had become too familiar with Alan Smithee.

SUPERNOVA is the subject of the latest episode in our video series WTF HAPPENED TO THIS HORROR MOVIE, and it's a perfect fit for this show. The film had a very bumpy ride on its way to reaching theatres without the director's name on it, and in the video embedded above we dig into the troubles it went through.

Scripted by David C. Wilson from a story by William Malone and Daniel Chuba, SUPERNOVA 

chronicles the search and rescue patrol of a deep space medical ship and its six-member crew. When their vessel, the Nightingale 229, answers an emergency distress signal from a comet mining operation in a distant galaxy, the crew soon finds itself in danger from mysterious young man they rescue, the alien artifact he's smuggled aboard, and the gravitational pull of a giant star about to go supernova — the most massive explosion in the universe.

This is what the WTF HAPPENED TO THIS HORROR MOVIE series is all about: 

Hollywood has had its fair share of historically troubled productions. Whether it was casting changes, actor deaths, fired directors, in-production rewrites, constant delays, budget cuts or studio edits, these films had every intention to be a blockbuster, but were beset with unforeseen disasters. Sometimes huge hits, sometimes box office bombs. Either way, we have to ask: WTF Happened To This Horror Movie?

Some previous episodes of the series can be seen below, and more can be found on our JoBlo Horror Videos channel!