It was recently revealed Natalie Portman had dropped off both Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity as well as the announced adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, the latter of which also lost David O. Russell as its director. While Sandra Bullock is rumored to now be up for the lead role in Gravity, Portman is moving in another direction.
Vulture reports Portman is at the top of the list to play the lead role of a female Colonial Marine general in Ridley Scott’s Untitled Alien Prequel, which is rumored to be chasing a budget between $150 – $160 million. The site also reports that right beyond Portman in the pecking order is Noomi Rapace, the star of Swedish The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo franchise as well as the new villain in Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes 2.
The report continues saying Damon Lindeloff’s recent rewrite of Jon Spaihts’ script has Fox execs thrilled, saying it is “creatively engaging” as well as remaining in the realm of a PG-13 rating. An insider, talking to Vulture, says, “The thinking is that if the original Alien were released today, minus the F-bombs, you could still get a PG-13. Alien is a very Jaws-ian movie: There’s no sex, and while there’s lots of violence, most of it is off-camera. Maybe you’d have to cut away from certain scenes two seconds earlier, but it could be done.”
Expectation is for the franchise to go backwards in terms of storytelling. Another insider tells Vulture, “The later Aliens movies were action movies, but the original Alien was a horror-suspense film. This returns the franchise to its roots.” I can get down with that.
The question now is who do you want for your female lead? Certainly, both choices offer a drastic difference when compared to Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley. Size alone will be big difference as Portman stands eight-inches shorter than Weaver and I would assume Rapace can’t be much taller as she certainly was looking up at 5′ 10″ Michael Nyqvist in Dragon Tattoo. However, as one of my Twitter followers just pointed out to me, is this casting a bit too close to Winona Ryder in Alien: Resurrection?
Who would you prefer to see kicking some alien ass?
