Vulture has nabbed some exclusive details on Ridley Scott’s Alien prequel—a film that, as the site notes, we can officially stop calling “Ridley Scott’s Alien prequel” and start calling Paradise. We’re not sure if that’s supposed to be just Paradise, which sounds sort of vague, or Alien: Paradise, which sounds like a Plato’s Retreat for aliens, perhaps where aliens are served pina coladas and then masturbated using mutilated cow vaginas, but either way, it’s Paradise. Perhaps it’s the same Paradise that Ridley Scott already conquest-ed in 1492; perhaps this suggests that Gerard Depardieu will burst out of someone’s chest, plant a flag, and declare, “I claim this chest in zee name of Spain!” Perhaps we’re being glib and jokey because we sort of can’t believe an Alien movie will be called Paradise. Nevertheless, that’s its name, according to Vulture. Your dad will have an awesome time making Eddie Money jokes at the box office.
As to the recent rumors that the film would be pushed back a year, Vulture refutes those, saying they’re an echo of a stranger time when Leonardo DiCaprio was supposedly being pursued for a role. Instead, the film will definitely pick up in March, likely with Girl With The Dragon Tattoo star Noomi Rapace taking over the lead of “Elizabeth Shaw,” and possibly Michelle Yeoh taking over the part of “Vickers… a fortysomething, tough-but-sexy woman,” which sounds more like the Alien we know. Other parts include “David,” an android precursor to Lance Henriksen’s Bishop who may or may not be played by Michael Fassbender, depending on whether he gets his reportedly “outrageous” sum of money; an “older businessman along for the ride” (please be Paul Reiser playing his own father!); and “Engineer 1,” an entirely CGIed character “à la Gollum in The Lord Of The Rings.”
Although the specifics of the plot are still unknown, Vulture does confirm that the story is essentially a “reboot of the franchise,” setting up yet another group of space travelers who encounter an alien race and are then picked off one by one. There’s no confirmation yet that the film will, as previously reported, tie into the "space jockey" glimpsed in the photo up above or, as bizarrely rumored, feature a "Brokeback Alien" scene where aliens use mind control to force two “male human slave farmers” to have sex with each other. Although that would certainly tie into that second definition of Alien: Paradise as the story of some decadent, elysian, intergalactic swingers’ party.