If you didn’t know (where have you been), Ridley Scott is returning to the daddy of all space horror films with his prequel to Alien.
Until now we knew nothing about the plot and it was all rumours and guesses. Now Scott has had a chat with MTV about what, and who, we will see in the film. Yes that does include the Space Jockey.
“It’s set in 2085, about 30 years before Sigourney [Weaver's character Ellen Ripley], it’s fundamentally about going out to find out ‘Who the hell was that Space Jockey?’ The guy who was sitting in the chair in the alien vehicle — there was a giant fellow sitting in a seat on what looked to be either a piece of technology or an astronomer’s chair. Remember that?”
“[The film] is about the discussion of terraforming — taking planets and planetoids and balls of earth and trying to terraform, seed them with the possibilities of future life,” he explained. “Weyland hasn’t joined Yutani yet, so they go and see Weyland,” Scott said.
“Well, the main character [in the prequel] will be a woman, yeah,” he revealed. “We’re thinking it could go down that route, yeah. When I started the original ‘Alien,’ Ripley wasn’t a woman, it was a guy. During casting, we thought, ‘Why don’t we make it a woman?’”
Turns out he thinks the original Alien designs are looking a little worn out, but Scott is already giving serious thought to collaborating with Giger again on a redesign.
“Yeah, he’s still around. Once I get more serious and get going, and the big wheels start turning, we’ll certainly talk. And maybe we’ll come up with something completely different.”
Sounds promising doesn’t it and if it has just half the greatness of the original then we are in for a treat. Made up we will find out more about the Space Jockey.
UPDATE: Collider spoke to Ridley Scott who confirmed that there would be two prequels and that he would be shooting in 3D.
What do you want to see in an Alien prequel? Will Lance Henriksen be in it as a another Wayland character?
I’m still not sure whether this is going to be good or suck great big ones. Not really been impressed by anything I have seen on it. I hope Ridley Scott does us proud.
No Inception and no Tree of Life, but some nice films showing and lots I’ve not heard of which is cool.
OPENING NIGHT PREMIERE
Robin Hood (US) – Ridley Scott
IN COMPETITION
Another Year (UK) – Mike Leigh
Biutiful (Spain-Mexico) – Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Burnt by the Sun 2 (Germany-France-Russia) – Nikita Mikhalkov
Certified Copy (France-Italy-Iran) – Abbas Kiarostami
Fair Game (US) – Doug Liman
Hors-la-loi (France-Belgium-Algeria) – Rachid Bouchareb
The Housemaid (South Korea) – Im Sang-soo
La nostra vita (Italy-France) – Daniele Luchetti
La Princesse de Montpensier (France) – Bertrand Tavernier
Of Gods and Men (France) – Xavier Beauvois
Outrage (Japan) – Takeshi Kitano
Poetry (South Korea) – Lee Chang-dong
A Screaming Man (France-Belgium-Chad) – Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
Tournee (France) Mathieu Amalric
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Spain-Thailand-Germany-U.K.-France) – Apichatpong Weerasethakul
You, My Joy (Ukraine-Germany) – Sergey Loznitsa
UN CERTAIN REGARD
Adrienn Pal (Hungary-Netherlands-France-Austria) Agnes Kocsis
Aurora (Romania) – Cristi Puiu
Blue Valentine (US) – Derek Cianfrance
Chatroom (UK) – Hideo Nakata
Chongqing Blues (China) – Wang Xiaoshuai
The City Below (Germany-France) – Christoph Hochhausler
Film Socialisme (Switzerland-France) – Jean-Luc Godard
Ha Ha Ha (South Korea) – Hong Sang-soo
Les Amours imaginaires (Canada) – Xavier Dolan
Life Above All (France) – Oliver Schmitz
Los labios (Argentina) – Ivan Fund, Santiago Loza
Octubre (Peru) – Daniel Vega
Qu’est-il arrive a Simon Werner? (France) – Fabrice Gobert
Rebecca H. (France) – Lodge Kerrigan
R U There (Taiwan) – David Verbeek
The Strange Case of Angelica (Portugal) Manoel de Oliveira
Tuesday, After Christmas (Romania) – Radu Muntean
Udaan (India) – Vikramaditya Motwane
OUT OF COMPETITION
Kaboom (US) – Gregg Araki
L’Autre Monde (France-Belgium) – Gilles Marchand
Tamara Drewe (UK) – Stephen Frears
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (US) – Oliver Stone
You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (UK-Spain) – Woody Allen
SPECIAL SCREENINGS
Abel – Diego Luna
Chantrapas – Otar Iosseliani
Draquila – L’Italaia Che Trema & Sabina Guzzanti
Inside Job – Charles Ferguson
Nostalgia De La Luz – Patrizio Guzman
Over Cities Grass Will Grow – Sophie Fiennes
UPDATE: On Wednesday, the day the short came out, a bidding war broke out between several studios — longtime rivals Warner Bros. and Fox are in the mix, according to sources — who see feature potential in the short. Some speculate the project will end up at Fox, because Rinsch is part of the stable of RSA, Ridley Scott’s commercial house that produced the short, and Scott’s longtime association with Fox. – Heat Vision
Shadow Locked spoke with art-director Roger Christian (art director on Star Wars and Alien) who mentioned some interesting news on Ridley Scott’s Alien film.
“Ridley’s doing the next Alien in 3D,” said Christian.
As we know Ridley Scott is set to return to the franchise for a prequel to his original film. Jon Spaihts is penning the script. The success of Avatar means pretty much everything is going 3D. Martin Scorsese recently said even films like Precious should be in 3D. I’m still not too sure about that, but I do think an Alien film will work in 3D.
“He has a very clear understanding of where this should go,” Christian said of Ridley. “They kind of stopped dead one of the greatest horror franchises there’s ever been, and it had legs to go on. So I’m hoping he’ll revive another three. The world certainly wants it, and the fans want it – everybody.”
Christian, who created the ‘cannibalisation’ technique of using stripped-out WWII bombers to dress SF movie classics Star Wars and Alien, is quite firm about the Alien prequel being in 3D, but less committed about it constituting the start of a new Alien trilogy. But it doesn’t seem reasonable to presume that the ‘trilogy’ comment is completely random. So that’s one rumour confirmed, but another springing up in its place, I guess.
Asked if he would have any involvement in Scott’s new Alien movie, Christian responded:
“I hope so. I actually met Ridley here at the film festival. We had a chat to catch up, and he was going on about how much I’d ‘got it’ on the first one. I guess that’s because of Star Wars, where I had a trained crew with me…and we learnt how to do it. It’s not a technique that’s easy to do – it’s something I’d learnt. So [Scott] kept saying how I was the one responsible, really.”
The excellent HeyUGuys posted the first posters for Ridley Scott’s take on the Hooded Man. I kind of like the poster, but to be honest nothing about this film has really grabbed me. It just seems like the same old same old and very Gladiator in the woods. and I still think Errol Flynn was a cracking Robin Hood.
Personally I would have liked them to have gone the slightly mystic way as they did in the old TV show, Robin of Sherwood. That’s the one that starred Michael Praed (then Jason Connery) as Robin alongside Will Scarlet (Ray Winstone), Little John (Clive Mantle), Friar Tuck (Phil Rose), Much (Peter Llewellyn Williams), the Saracen Nasir (played by Mark Ryan) and Lady Marian (played by Judi Trott). He was also assisted by Herne The Hunter (John Abineri). As in the legend, Robin is opposed by the Sheriff of Nottingham (Nickolas Grace) and Guy of Gisbourne (Robert Addie). Now that was a cool show.
Here’s the synopsis for the new Robin Hood film:
Oscar® winner Russell Crowe stars as the legendary figure known by generations as “Robin Hood,” whose exploits have endured in popular mythology and ignited the imagination of those who share his spirit of adventure and righteousness. In 13th century England, Robin and his band of marauders confront corruption in a local village and lead an uprising against the crown that will forever alter the balance of world power. And whether thief or hero, one man from humble beginnings will become an eternal symbol of freedom for his people.
The untitled Robin Hood adventure chronicles the life of an expert archer, previously interested only in self-preservation, from his service in King Richard’s army against the French. Upon Richard’s death, Robin travels to Nottingham, a town suffering from the corruption of a despotic sheriff and crippling taxation, where he falls for the spirited widow Lady Marion (Oscar® winner Cate Blanchett), a woman skeptical of the identity and motivations of this crusader from the forest. Hoping to earn the hand of Maid Marion and salvage the village, Robin assembles a gang whose lethal mercenary skills are matched only by its appetite for life. Together, they begin preying on the indulgent upper class to correct injustices under the sheriff.
With their country weakened from decades of war, embattled from the ineffective rule of the new king and vulnerable to insurgencies from within and threats from afar, Robin and his men heed a call to ever greater adventure. This unlikeliest of heroes and his allies set off to protect their country from slipping into bloody civil war and return glory to England once more.
Dan O’Bannon is a true sci-fi / horror legend. He wrote so many excellent screenplays you have no doubt seen some of the films based on his work.
He wrote the screenplay Star Beast (written with Richard Shusset) that was turned into Alien by Ridley Scott. He wrote the screenplay for John Carpenter’s directorial debut, Dark Star (he also played Sgt Pinback in the film).
Want more? How do the screenplays for Blue Thunder, Lifeforce (naked space vampires), Total Recall, Dead and Buried, Heavy Metal and Screamers grab you? He also directed The Return of the Living Dead and, get this, he did special effects work on Star Wars – the good ones.
Basically the man is a legend, yet sadly, he has been taken from us at the tender age of 63. Who knows what other flights of fancy he had in store for us, but no more. AICN are reporting that he had been in hospital for the past week but had lost the good fight.
He liked sci-fi, horror, H P Lovecraft, film and he could write up a storm. He will be missed.
Collider have a great interview with man of the moment Mark Strong. He talks about his roles in Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes, Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood and Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass.
However, he also spoke about Pixar’s John Carter of Mars. The adaption of Edgar Rice Burroughs work is directed by Andrew Stanton it stars Taylor Kitsch as John Carter, Lynn Collins and Willem Dafoe. Strong plays the villainous Matai Shang and it sounds as if this could be a mind blowing film.
“I play a character called Matai Shang and he is the ruler of a group of people called the Ferns who are like the old Olympian Gods. They exist….people aren’t really sure if they exist, but basically he’s a master of the Universe. They travel ’round keeping order in the Universe. So basically he exists over and above the Martians that exist on the planet. Like I say, he’s like an Olympian God. I mean getting to play Mati Shang Master of the Universe, it doesn’t get much better than that.
He is, over the course of the 3 movies that they’re envisioning making and I’ve seen the synopsis of the 2nd and 3rd, basically and in the novels, Princess of Mars that Rice Burroughs wrote, Matai Shang is basically John Carter’s nemesis. So he comes into his own during the 2nd half of the current movie and then just basically gets bigger and bigger in the 2nd and 3rd.
With the mix of live action and CGI it sounds like it could be along the lines of Avatar, but when asked about whether it was in 3D Strong said he had not been told if it was.
I don’t believe so. Not that I know of, no. I’ve certainly never heard that or been told that. No, I know it’s a combination of live action and motion capture. That’s all I know for right now.
I mean it looks phenomenal. I mean his conception of it is extraordinary. I mean it’s “Avatar” type territory and I think the point I was making before about these Pixar’s guys are always wanting to be in the vanguard. They want to be leading from the front. They’re giving the public stories that the public don’t even know they want. I mean a story about a fish? A story about an old guy keeping his house? On paper, these must seem like, you know, how on earth are you going to carry those things off. Talking toys? Come on. But they I think Andrew said they’re in the business of giving the public what they want before they know they want it. So I can totally imagine he’s gone to see “Avatar” and that’ll just set the cogs whirring in his brain and the twinkle in his eye because he’ll just want to surpass it, no question.
I think it’s something like a $200 million budget. It starts in January and I actually go through to May. I think some of it is also filming in Utah, so it’s a 5 month production based largely in London with some exterior scenes in the desert I assume in Utah. So it’s a massive production.
This is definitely shaping up to be something that could well be spectacular.
It went from being a film called Nottingham about the Sheriff, to a man who was both Sheriff and Robin Hood and then to just plain old Robin Hood. Here’s the trailer and to be honest it doesn’t really grab me. It just doesn’t seem that Robin Hoody to me.
Oscar winner Russell Crowe stars as the legendary figure known by generations as Robin Hood, whose exploits have endured in popular mythology and ignited the imagination of those who share his spirit of adventure and righteousness. In 13th century England, Robin and his band of marauders confront corruption in a local village and lead an uprising against the crown that will forever alter the balance of world power. And whether thief or hero, one man from humble beginnings will become an eternal symbol of freedom for his people.
Robin Hood chronicles the life of an expert archer, previously interested only in self-preservation, from his service in King Richard’s army against the French. Upon Richard’s death, Robin travels to Nottingham, a town suffering from the corruption of a despotic sheriff and crippling taxation, where he falls for the spirited widow Lady Marion (Cate Blanchett), a woman skeptical of the identity and motivations of this crusader from the forest. Hoping to earn the hand of Maid Marion and salvage the village, Robin assembles a gang whose lethal mercenary skills are matched only by its appetite for life.
Together, they begin preying on the indulgent upper class to correct injustices under the sheriff.With their country weakened from decades of war, embattled from the ineffective rule of the new king and vulnerable to insurgencies from within and threats from afar, Robin and his men heed a call to ever greater adventure. This unlikeliest of heroes and his allies set off to protect their country from slipping into bloody civil war and return glory to England once more.
If you didn’t know (where have you been), Ridley Scott is returning to the daddy of all space horror films with his prequel to Alien.
