Earlier today, Deadline announced a few new cast members for ALIEN: COVENANT, specifically Jussie Smollett (Jamal on EMPIRE), Carmen Ejogo (Coretta Scott King in SELMA), Callie Hernandez (“Space Babe” in MACHETE KILLS), and Amy Seimetz (UPSTREAM COLOR, TV’s THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE). A few hours later, they announced another, much bigger-name cast member: Dr. Manhattan/Russell Hammond himself, Billy Crudup.
Presumably, all these folks are playing crewmembers aboard the same ship looking for the survivors of the Prometheus. I, personally, would peg Crudup as the Tom Skerritt/Charlize Theron role of the one who seems to be in charge until it becomes very clear that they’re, you know, not.
Still “unclear” as to whether Noomi Rapace will return or not, so I’m guessing her character is in the script (probably towards the end, like a certain Skywalker in FORCE AWAKENS) and either a. she’s not signed yet or b. her appearance is being kept as a surprise.
They’ve been announcing cast members all month, and it doesn’t seem like there’s much more room for any further casting (at least for name actors), so this seems to be pretty much the entire roster for this latest ALIEN entry. With Waterston, McBride, Bichir, and now these names joining Fassbender, I’d say Scott’s got a nice little group together, would you agree?
As someone who did like PROMETHEUS quite a bit, I can’t wait for this one to finally come out, but Scott’s going to have to put in miles of effort to win back the folks that were lost due to the haphazard scripting of the previous film. I know we’re all hoping he pulls it off.
ALIEN: COVENANT will probably not stop for Crudup’s guitar playing as many times as UNTITLED on October 7th, 2017.
