“Alien: Covenant” Korean Theatrical Poster
Ridley Scott returns to the universe he created in Alien with Alien: Covenant, the second chapter in a prequel trilogy that began with Prometheus — and connects directly to Scott’s 1979 seminal work of science fiction. The film hits theaters on May 19th, 2017.
Before it was known as Alien: Covenant, the movie went through a few titles, including Paradise, Alien: Paradise Lost and the obvious, Prometheus II.
Bound for a remote planet on the far side of the galaxy, the crew of the colony ship Covenant discovers what they think is an uncharted paradise, but is actually a dark, dangerous world — whose sole inhabitant is the “synthetic” David (Michael Fassbender), survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition.
Michael Fassbender and Noomi Rapace are the only cast members returning from Prometheus. They’ll be joined by some new characters, including Katherine Waterston (Steve Jobs), James Franco (127 Hours), Danny McBride (Eastbound and Down), Demian Bichir (The Hateful 8), Billy Crudup (Spotlight), Guy Pearce (Memento), Amy Seimetz (Upstream Color), Jussie Smollet (Empire), Carmen Ejogo (Selma) and Callie Hernandez (La La Land).
It should also be noted that director Neill Blomkamp (District 9) ultimately decided put his Alien sequel on hold in an effort to avoid confusion with Alien: Covenant. Blomkamp’s sequel would serve as a direct continuation to 1986’s Aliens, but would ignore all other subsequent Alien films.
Media: Watch the Trailer. | 5-Minute Prologue. | 2nd Trailer. | Red Band Trailer.
Updates: Added the film’s New Prologue below:
When Prometheus was initially greenlit, it was seen as two separate movies to be chronologically before the first Alien movie, written by Jon Spaihts, being directed by Carl Erik Rinsc, and Scott staying only as producer. However, Fox wanted Scott in the director’s chair so bad that he eventually accepted under the condition that the script was heavily retooled to reflect the concepts that he wanted to explore. Damon Lindelof was the pen to make it happen, and the result has been described in certain moments as a both a prequel and an original story. For instance, in an interview, Michael Fassbender confirmed that this is actually an Alien movie, taking place in the Alien universe. In July 2011, however, Scott stated in another interview that “by the end of the third act you start to realize there’s a DNA of the very first Alien, but none of the subsequent [films]”.
In short, the story takes place within the same universe albeit not directly connected to the events of the original. There has been some misdirection on part of the film makers to help heighten interest in the film by showing glimpses and links in common with Alien, including imagery inspired by, if not designed and built by, H.R. Giger (Source). The third trailer for Prometheus shows footage of alien spacecraft shaped like the Derelict Ship and the premise to explain the “Space Jockey” inside such ship, confirming that the film does, indeed, take place in the same fictional universe as the previous Alien films, but will focus far more on the Space Jockey race (called “gods and engineers” by Ridley Scott since the early interviews) other than on the so-called “alien creature” or “xenomorph”.
I am excited about this, but I would be more excited if this was the Alien film that Neil Blomkamp was supposed to do. It just seemed like Blomkamp was gearing up for his Alien film and Scott, sensing that this film might be better than his, didn’t want people playing with his toys and stepped in and said “we don’t need a sequel to Alien. We need a sequel to Prometheus. Because that is the film everyone loves”
I’ll wait for a trailer for a better assumption, but the teaser poster is nice.