Now that Ridley Scott has almost definitely settled on a title for the second film in his Alien prequel trilogy—as well as given us an idea of how much nudity and/or evisceration we can expect to see (the answer: lots of the latter)—he can finally get down to the business of casting the damn thing. Although the ending of Prometheus sets up Dr. Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) to be a part of any future films, what with her being the only survivor (other than an android’s head) of the crew, it seems the character won’t be seen in the next chapter after all.
While discussing the history of formidable female characters in his films with The Daily Mail, Scott said casting for the leads in Alien: Covenant was ongoing, but that Rapace would not reprise her role. The film will jump forward 10 years after the events in Prometheus, which presumably gives Dr. Shaw plenty of time to be waylaid on her quest to finding where “they” (those tall, pale aliens) came from. Scott mentioned that he’s already drawn “very detailed storyboards” that include “every planned camera shot, from every angle,” so he probably won’t vacillate on this particular decision. And anyway, 10 years is probably plenty of time for a different group of scientists to find an eccentric trillionaire to fund their expedition to track down the origins of life on Earth. Just look at how eager the folks at NASA were to go to Mars to find Matt Damon.