Michael Fassbender is set to join the ranks of actors who have played androids in the Alien universe. Ian Holm was memorable as the deceitful ‘Ash’ in the original ‘Alien’ and in James Cameron‘s smash follow-up Lance Henriksen played the courageous ‘Bishop’, who preferred the term ‘artificial person’.
Fassbender joins Noomi Rapace in Ridley Scott’s upcoming film, originally devised as a prequel to his 1979 classic that has since evolved into a standalone tale called Prometheus that will contain “strands of ‘Alien’s’ DNA” as Ridley puts it. Though plot details are scarce, Fassbender appears alongside Noomi Rapace’s scientist Elizabeth Shaw, similar to Bishop’s role in ‘Aliens’.
Sky Movies reports via an exclusive source that the ‘Space Jockey’ will still form part of the story with the cockpit featured in the first film said to have been built over at Pinewood Studios in the U.K.
The HR Giger alien design which has become so over used will be getting an extreme makeover and the new Aliens are said to be big. The title of the film is also said to refer to the name of a spacecraft.
Some of the movie is reportedly being shot in Morocco which will form parts of the alien landscape as well as an archeological dig which turns up the ‘DNA’ and the co-ordinates to an Alien homeworld.
‘Lost’ writer Damon Lindelof was brought in to rewrite the script and the ideas have likely steamrolled, so it will be exciting to see a fresh take on the Alien mythos.The original Jon Spaihts script was a distinct prequel story and ended with the android ‘Ash’ being programmed with his ‘mission’, so this gives an indication as to why androids feature in the Prometheus Universe.
Fassbender will next be seen as a younger version of Ian McKellen‘s Eric Lehnsherr / Magneto in the upcoming ‘X-Men First Class’, and news of his casting officially takes him out of the running to appear in Universal’s ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’.
In other recent news the release date of ‘Prometheus’ has been pushed back from March 2012 to the high-profile summer release of June 8, 2012, didn’t you just know that would happen?
At this stage any Alien film from master filmmaker Ridley Scott is good news and it’s certainly shaping up to be a movie worth the wait.
via: THR Sky Movies
You forgot Winona Ryder as “Call.”