The Alien prequel: news and rumour round-up

The Predator franchise got a workmanlike reboot over the summer but how much more exciting is the idea of a new, fully-fledged Alien movie? Below, we round up the news, rumours and gossip on the subject of Ridley Scott's prequel.

The information below is a collection of the news and rumours have been disseminated since the prequel was first mentioned. We try to round it all up into one tasty, manageable brainful with a few hints at to the likelihood of each bit of news. But everything must kick off with the fact that the film has a title: Paradise. (UPDATE NOTE: the title has been debunked, it's a production alias at best.) But what of the plot?

It's going to be a straight-up prequel, as far as we can tell, that follows the slasher-movie-in-space format. The story is to follow a group of human explorers in deep space, who encounter the aliens and are picked off one-by-one. Not enough information for you? Well, try this (which may be as full of bullshit as mushroom food). According to Slashfilm, which reported that an Australian outlet had got hold of a script by Damon Lindelof, which was a do-over of a previous draft by John Spaihts. In this, perhaps unreliable version of events, the story concerns the 'Growers', a terraforming extraterrestrial race that was glimpsed in Alien. That's right, this refers to the mysterious 'Space Jockey': a stripped skeleton found sat at the controls of a crashed ship in Alien. The creature has a somewhat benign, elephant-like look but Ridley Scott previously suggested that its skeletal remains are in fact just a space suit – whose inhabitant might be somewhat different.

The Growers utilise the labour of human slaves and also an earlier version of the xenomorph, which comes in handy at some stage of the terraforming process, though it's in no way as homicidal as its later incarnations. While that all sounds relatively sound – the space jockey has been mentioned in conjunction with the plot since the first discussions about the prequel – when we drill down to details, it all begins to sound a little unlikely for a mainstream action pic. Here's what Slashfilm had to say on the Antipodean scoop: “There’s a strange sequence in which the Growers use a bit of mind control to instigate a homosexual encounter between Fin and Karik, two male human slave farmers. The aliens, you see, are a single-sex species and don’t understand the male-female breeding requirements of humans.” Into the middle of this set-up comes the usual Alien crew of misfits, who are then digested individually as they lie, flee and fight.

Even if some of the above details seem far-fetched (Fin and Karik are rubbish names for terraforming slaves, however you look at it), we can guess that terraforming is a probable part of the plot. This has been on the cards since day one. Earlier rumours surrounding the script suggested that the film would cover the merger between the Weyland Corporation and the Yutani Corporation to create the MegaEvilCorp of the chronologically later (but earlier produced) films. Both companies have an interest in terraforming, both have a key role to play in the alien massacres to follow: it makes sense that we'd seen something of the corporations' early years.

The race of aliens from which the space jockey comes from are also likely to be involved, though we would guess that they won't play such a major role as the Slashfilm scoop suggests. In fact, judging from the characters we know they're looking to cast, we would guess that the majority of the action will take place after the space jockey race has been routed by their own invention, the xenomorph, who has by then evolved into the creature we love to fear.

Now, according to a big scoop by New York magazine's Vulture blog, here are the characters who seem to be confirmed for the film: 

Elizabeth Shaw – this is to be the film's protagonist, a young woman roughly 25-30 years old. At the moment, the frontrunners for this part seem to be Olivia Wilde and Noomi Rapace. Noomi Rapace has shown she can handle the physicality of the role with her work in the Millennium trilogy but at this stage, she is untried as far as Hollywood blockbuster work goes (her first studio outing will be in the Sherlock Holmes sequel). She is also, from what we've seen so far, the better actor of the two. Oiivia Wilde, on the other hand, has Tron: Legacy under her belt, as well as the upcoming Cowboys & Aliens. The first of these is a huge, effects-led 3D extravaganza, the second, your standard blockbuster, which may well encourage Fox – the studio behind Paradise – to cast her as a relatively sure thing, instead of the untested Rapace. We hope not and feel they'll be missing a trick if they do.

Vickers – a key supporting character, Vickers (we presume this is her surname) is a tough, sexy 40-something crew member who's already been compared to Aliens' Marine Vasquez. This role is apparently spoken for as Ridley Scott is courting Michelle Yeoh (Tomorrow Never Dies, Crouching Tiger) to play the part. (UPDATE: Fox's Chris Petrikin has denied Yeoh is involved in the production.)

David – David is an android crew member. He will be some sort of forebear of the Bishop 341-B character, played by Lance Henriksen in Aliens and Alien3. As the character has been compared to Bishop and not the traitorous Ash, the android from Alien, played by Ian Holm, we are presuming that the other crew members will be aware of his origins.

Engineer One – The ship's first engineer will be a six foot five alien. The character will be created entirely in CGI and mapped over an actor's performance, much like Andy Serkis' Gollum. Will this character be of the Space Jockey race? If we were compelled to hazard a guess, it would be no. The people of Alien had no idea what the skeleton they discovered was – it's not therefore likely to be from a familiar planet where crew members are recruited. Nonetheless, the all-human crews of the other films suggest that it's something of a rarity.

The businessman – The crew has some kind of tag-along, in the form of a business traveller. We are guessing that this individual will have something to do with the nascent Weyland-Yutani Corp. It could even be one of the two founders. There no news as to who will take this role but we're guessing it'll be an older gent.

So with Rapace or Wilde looking likely and Michelle Yeoh circling a role, who's already been discounted?

Leonardo DiCaprio – The film was to be delayed – and then it wasn't. The reason, apparently, was that DiCaprio was considering taking a role but the filming schedule didn't fit in with his headlining gig on Clint Eastwood's Hoover. So production was allegedly put back. But now, there's no DiCaprio and the film is back on schedule.

Michael Fassbender – The filmmakers were apparently chasing Fassbender for a starring role, it's suggested as David, the android. But the actor, who is currently filming Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class, in which he plays Eric Lensherr, was apparently dropped from consideration after his agents held out for too much money. (UPDATE: Fox's Chris Petrikin denied Fassbender was offered a role.) 

Lance Henriksen – The actor was reportedly approached for a character in some way related to Bishop the android. In Alien 3, he plays a character (named Bishop II in the credits) who is either another android or the person he's based on. In Alien vs Predator, Henriksen plays Weyland CEO Charles Bishop Weyland. So it's more than possible that Henriksen was considered to play some other member of the Weyland clan, perhaps the businessman tag-along of the confirmed characters.

So when does shooting start on this space monster? There were rumours the start date was being pushed back a year but according to Vulture once again, production on the film will begin in March for a 2012 release date.

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