During the Christmas holiday, 20th Century Fox released a teaser trailer for its upcoming Alien prequel, Alien: Covenant. Since then, there hasn’t been a whole lot of information available about the latest addition to the Alien film series, other than rumors that James Franco would be in the cast, along with Michael Fassbender (returning from Prometheus), Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup and Danny McBride.
That is, until this week. On Tuesday, the studio released a cast photo of the entire crew of the colony ship Covenant, one which somewhat resembled Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting of The Last Supper. The Fox marketing team certainly didn’t steer away from that, titling the image “AC_LastSup_group.” The photo also confirmed Franco’s place in the cast. He’s right in the middle of the ensemble. Does that provide any indication as to the importance of his role?
Producers quickly followed that up by posting a short prologue for Alien: Covenant online. Is this actually a scene from the film or a clever way to introduce the audience to this new cast of characters? (It could be both, of course.) In the prologue’s nearly five-minute run time, we get an idea of the hierarchy on the ship. Crudup and Franco play leadership roles on the crew, while Waterston’s character (Daniels) is leading the mission, judging from her speech, to the planet which the Covenant will be exploring. Take a look.
Director Ridley Scott certainly appears to be having some fun with the audience in this clip. The character played by Callie Hernandez is choking on food, which immediately calls to mind the infamous scene from the original 1979 Alien film in which the late John Hurt is seemingly choking on his meal, but is dealing with a far greater menace inside his chest. No blow to the back was going to clear his airway. It’s one of the most memorable scenes in sci-fi film history, and maybe cinema in general. (We’ll link to it here, rather than embed the clip, just in case you’re reading this at work.)
Fortunately, this particular crew only had her airway blocked by food and nothing growing inside her, ready to emerge. Luckily for her, Fassbender’s android (named Walter) was on hand to provide assistance while others were making jokes and assessing a suddenly uncomfortable situation. Or maybe booze just dulled everyone’s reflexes. Maybe everyone should be eating potatoes like Matt Damon did in The Martian (another Ridley Scott film), instead of whatever pre-fab, freeze-dried stuff that the company is offering the Covenant crew in space.
Alien: Covenant will be released in theaters on May 18. In the meantime, chew your food thoroughly and don’t take big bites. Oh, and avoid any hatching alien eggs near your face too.
