LATEST NEWS

Potential Casting, New Details & Title Debunked for 'Alien' Prequel

by Ethan Anderton
December 8, 2010
Source: Vulture

Though we've been hearing about the upcoming Alien prequels from director Ridley Scott for some time now, details have been few and far between. We've heard rumblings of a female Colonial Marine General, potential casting for that role and a reference to an alien that Scott has referred to as the Space Jockey, but other than that, we're pretty much in the dark. However, Vulture, who has been responsible for most of the scoops for these prequels, has a slew of new updates. First and foremost, let's give this sucker a title since the prequel has apparently been dubbed Paradise. But that's not all, because there's even more info below.

In addition to the new title, Vulture reveals that this prequel is more or less a reboot of the Alien franchise. It sounds like the story still takes place years before the events of Alien, but Paradise will once again with a group of isolated space travelers who find themselves face-to-face with a monstrous alien that begins killing the crew one right after the other. Hopefully this isn't a lifeless rehashing of the original, because that would render these prequels mostly irrelevant and be a waste of some talented actors. Speaking of actors, while no official offers have been made, there are plenty more names in the running.

We've already heard about Noomi Rapace and Natalie Portman being in the running for the lead female role of Elizabeth Shaw, but she's obviously not the only one facing off with these monsters. Much like the first film, Paradise also has an android character by the name of David which is said to be "an earlier version of the Bishop 341-B character that Lance Henriksen famously played in Aliens." Michael Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds) has been sought for that role, but apparently his agents/managers shot for the moon with their paycheck request, which kind of caught Sir Ridley Scott offguard, and the director may have changed his mind.

Though everyone's used to a strong female leading the charge against these aliens, there's room in space for more females. Apparently Scott is interested in giving the "tough but sexy" female role of Vickers to Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Tomorrow Never Dies). She's not an obvious choice and she has quite the action background, so that's a plus. But perhaps the most interesting character that Vulture reveals is one that will be crafted entirely by digital effects, but brought to life by an actor through motion capture. While you may think mocap master Andy Serkis is perfect for the job, apparently the casting call is specifically looking for an actor who is six feeet, five inches tall.

While all this information sounds wholly intriguing, a recent Twitter update from 20th Century Fox's account has us skeptical. The Senior Vice President for Corporate Communication updated their feed saying, "I don't know where to begin to correct what is being written about a certain Ridley Scott project…" It sounds like there might be some false information floating around, but no specific details have been debunked. Just to be safe, take these new details with a grain of salt until official word surfaces. Personally, I just want this to get into production already. At least the recent rumors of a production delay are untrue, so it looks like the first film will still see the light of day in the next year or two rather than 2013 or 2014.  What do you think of this new information?

UPDATE: As we warned above, most of the information provided seems to have been dubbed false by Fox. The aforementioned Senior Vice President for Corporate Communication, Chris Petrikin, also wanted to confirm that there will only be one Alien prequel as opposed to the talk of two prequels that has been circulating the web for sometime. Once again, most of the updates seem to be false, but hopefully we'll have some real information on the project soon.

Tweet

Find more posts: Casting, Movie News, Opinions

19 Comments

New comments are no longer allowed on this post.