Source URL: Ridley Scott: 'Alien: Covenant' Is First of 3 Films Before Linking Up With Original 'Alien'
Ridley Scott: 'Alien: Covenant' Is First of 3 Films Before Linking Up With Original 'Alien'
9:03 PM PST 11/26/2015 by Pip Bulbeck
The director revealed details of the 'Alien' origin stories as he begins pre-production on the followup to 'Prometheus' in Australia.
'Prometheus'
Ridley Scott confirmed that he is planning another two
Prometheus sequels to follow
Alien: Covenant [2]before the
Prometheusstoryline meets up with the original 1979
Alien.
Alien: Covenant and the following two films will be origin stories, answering the “very basic questions posed in Alien: why the alien, who might have made it and where did it come from?” Scott revealed at a press conference in Sydney where he is starting pre-production on
Covenant, the first sequel to
Prometheus.
“Its a very complex story. Its an evolution of what I first did with
Prometheus 1,” he said of the new film, which tells the story of the crew of the colony ship Covenant, who discover 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.
“
Prometheus 1 was borne out of my frustration that on
Alien 1 in 1979 - I only did one as I don't normally do sequels. I was amazed that in the 3 that followed that no-one asked the question "why the Alien, who made it and why?" Very basic questions. So I came up with the notion of
Prometheus 1, which starts to indicate who might have made it and where it came from,” Scott said.
"So I’m now going to the next one, which is the next evolution directly connected with the first one, which was this Shaw, when he replaced Michael Fassbender in two pieces and we’ll kind of pick it up there and it will evolve. When that’s finished there’ll be another one and then another one which will gradually drive into the back entrance of the film in 1979,” the British director revealed.
“So in other words, why was this space jockey there and why did he have an Alien inside him? And those questions will be answered,” he added.
Scott’s aversion to sequels is clearly fading – and in part inspired by thenew
Star Wars films.
“
Star Wars will be a juggernaut. Why do you think I’m doing sequels,” he quipped.
Alien: Covenant will shoot at Sydney’s Fox Studios from March with Michael Fassbender to reprise his
Prometheus role as the synthetic David. Other casting hasn’t been confirmed although Scott did say that
Prometheus 1 star
Noomi Rapace will only appear briefly in
Covenant. Scott is keen to use Australian actors, revealing that that he wanted Cate Blanchett for
The Martian but she was unavailable.
Shooting will be a mix of location and studio shoots with location requiting “monumental forest and monumental rock and the rest will be in the studio with fairly formidable CGI.
The Martian was made for the most part 94 pecent in a Budapest studio. With green screen I now can’t tell what was studio and
what was shot in Wadi Rum [3],” Scott said.
Michael Fassbender will arrive in Sydney in mid-March for the 16 week shoot.
The NSW state government said the film will contribute more than $43.3 million (AUS$60 million) to the state’s economy and employ more than 600 local cast and crew.
The
Australian government committed a one off grant t [4]o get the film made in Australia. That grant in effect raised Australian location tax offset from 16 percent to 30 percent, a move which its now considering making permanent for all productions. A decision will be made on that before May next year, foreign minister Julie Bishop, who secured the shoot for Australia, said.
At the same time Scott revealed that
Blade Runner 2, which we wrote and will produce, with Denis Villeneuve directing, will be made in Budapest, where he made
The Martian, and Beijing.
But he said the idea is to shoot the three
Prometheus/Alien films in Australia.