Ridley Scott is about to start production soon on Alien: Covenant in Australia, while the new cast haven’t signed their contracts we have a bit of confirmation about returners. As Scott mentions that Noomi Rapace will indeed come back as Elizabeth Shaw in a minor role.
Michael Fassebender said to be taking “duel roles”, something we heard ages ago from The Wrap about multiple Davids. We had heard similar details, and having other Davids on the colony ship would make a lot of sense. I’m confident this is the case, as we reported another human ship in the sequel and this seems to lineup with these recent reports of the colony ship being the focus. While the details might have been changed, as Michael Green and John Logan have since added their own rewrites to the script, the meat of our original rumor still seems to be there.
Ridley went on to reveal he’s indeed looking at hiring a Aussie cast for the production, and teased about re-teaming with one of them for the film.
He brought-up the potential of re-teaming with Oscar-winning Aussie actress Cate Blanchett, as she was originally set to be in The Martian, but was replaced with Jessica Chastain due to scheduling conflicts. Filming being in Australia could see a heap of Aussie actors lining-up to board the colony ship Covenant. This could be the same role that Rebecca Ferguson was being eyed for.
He confirmed that a number of Australians will feature in the cast – “I would always look for that; it’s a natural thing to do,” he said, adding, “Aussie actors are in my DNA”.
Scott raised the prospect of working with his Robin HoodMaid Marion, Cate Blanchett again.
The pair had been set to work together on The Martian, until a scheduling clash made her unavailable and the role went to Jessica Chastain instead.
Perhaps, being offered a major role in Covenant could be the reason behind Cate turning down that role in Wonder Woman?
Cate could be both an excellent villain or even a successor to Ripley depending on how this film is expected to go, but we should be expecting a large Australian cast in the film. Scott did end-up adding Oscar winner Charlize Theron to the cast of Prometheus, so, going after awards caliber talent a second time wouldn’t be terribly shocking to us.
SOURCE: SCREEN DAILY