1/ SEQUELS & PREQUELS
‘Alien Covenant’ is the 8th Feature Film to tie in with the ‘Alien’ franchise, which includes two Predator spin-offs. It serves as a sequel to 2012’s ‘Prometheus’ and is the third ‘Aliens’ film to be directed by Ridley Scott.
2/ BLOOD
From the beginning, Ridley Scott was out for blood. Producer Mark Huffam revealed that Ridley’s first line was ‘We’re going to make a hard R-rated film, and we’re going to need a lot of claret,’ (a term for film blood). That was the very first conversation – we’re out to scare the pants off everybody.”
3/ ANDROID A -Z
This is the first time that the alphabetic pattern has been broken for the artificial’s names, to date the Alien movies have featured Ash, Bishop, Cal, David and now Walter.
4/ PARADISE LOST
The movie was originally titled ‘Alien : Paradise Lost’ before being changed to the catchier ‘Alien : Covenant’
5/ CLAUSTROPHOBIA
To recreate the claustrophobic elements of the original 1979 ‘Alien’ movie, the interiors of the Covenant ship were kept small, with low ceilings and dark corridors. The ships bridge was made functional to create a tactile experience for the actors by installing 1,500 different circuits, which allowed every switch and dial to work.
6/ WHAT IS A COVENANT ?
A Covenant is an agreement or a promise. In biblical terms, the Covenant between God and Israel was a promise by God to never again wipe clean the Earth as he has done in the flood. What these means for the Alien franchise is open to interpretation.
7/ DR. STRANGELOVE
The character of Tennessee, played by comedy actor Danny McBridge is based on Major T.J. ‘King’ Kong as played by Slim Pickens in Stanley Kubrick’s classic satire, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Speaking about the role, McBride revealed “Tennessee was an homage to him, so we worked on finding the perfect cowboy hat and the perfect flight suit.”
8/ ALIEN 3
The third Alien movie released in 1992 is one of the most divisive amongst fans but director Ridley Scott avoided watching it for over 20 years. Unhappy with what he saw, he came up with the idea of improving the franchise by making a “sequel-substitution” in the form of the current prequels.
9/ FASSBENDER
2.0 Michael Fassbender’s role in the Alien franchise is cloaked in mystery, in ‘Prometheus’ he played the android David, while in ‘Covenant’ he’ll also play an entirely different character by the name Walter, a loyal synthetic who keeps watch as the passengers aboard ‘Covenant’ remain locked away in cryosleep.
10/ DRIP DROP
Ridley Scott’s attention to detail on set went right down to drops of water on set. This realism was something that excited special effects supervisor Neil Corbould. “Ridley’s a very visual director, and he loves his atmosphere. Even with water drips, he’s very precise on where drips should be or how big they should be. He’s very meticulous about the look of every small detail and he loves physical things, which is music to our ears because we get to build really big rigs and big set pieces.”
WATCH THE TRAILER
ALIEN COVENANT IS AT IRISH CINEMAS FROM MAY 12th