Tag: Alien

Ridley Scott talks about creativity, photographic memory, “Prometheus,” painting and the possibilities of another “Blade Runner” film in this premiere episode of “Hero Complex: The Show” on the Nerdist Channel. After 30 years, the esteemed filmmaker is returning to science fiction on June 8 with “Prometheus,” a movie set in the ”same universe” as his classic “Alien” (1979). The movie stars Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron and Idris Elba as crew members aboard the Prometheus, a ship sent across the stars to find the secrets of humanity’s origins. Scott, at age 74, is on a search of his own as he returns to questions left unanswered in “Alien” (as he explained when he first spoke publicly about this project at the 2010 Hero Complex Film Festival). We spoke with him at the Los Angeles offices of his production company. I get the fun job of hosting “Hero Complex: ...

Ridley Scott studied painting at the Royal Academy of Art in the 1950s, but unlike classmate David Hockney, he decided that career would be a life of cruel dawns. “Staring at a big canvas every morning with a pack of cigarettes saying, ‘I hate what I just did yesterday.’ So it was a fight with yourself.” The filmmaker still paints for pleasure, but ruefully he points out that he “never truly finishes a canvas,” and perhaps that’s one reason that, with his new film “Prometheus,” Scott, 74, returns to the deep-space mythology of his 1979 film, “Alien,” to find empty corners and layers that can be thickened. Just two years after “Star Wars,” “Alien” may have been just as revolutionary with the universe it presented — a future where corporations calculated the profit between planets, toyed with the lives of ...

Ridley Scott, one of the true titans of contemporary cinema, will be the inaugural guest on Wednesday when “Hero Complex: The Show” with host Geoff Boucher premieres on the Nerdist Channel on You Tube. Scott, the director of “Blade Runner,” “Alien,” “Gladiator” and “Black Hawk Down,” returns to science fiction this summer with “Prometheus,” the Fox film set in the “Alien” universe and starring  Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba and Logan Marshall-Green. It was at  the Hero Complex Film Festival in 2010 that Scott first spoke at length publicly about the project, and now that comes full circle as he again sits down with Hero Complex creator and lead writer Geoff Boucher in this new forum. Leonard Nimoy and Daniel Clowes will be guests in the second and third episodes, respectively, which will be posted on the Nerdist Channel every other Wednesday. The Hero Complex launched ...

When the enigmatic television series “Lost” came to a close two years ago, show co-creator Damon Lindelof thought he was done working on scripts with shadowy plot lines. Then he got an offer to write “Prometheus,” a Ridley Scott-directed science-fiction film whose story has been kept tightly under wraps since its inception. “Coming out of ‘Lost,’ I was like, ‘What a relief it’ll be to leave mystery and secretiveness behind,’” recalled the 38-year-old, who also was one of the writers who penned last year’s “Cowboys & Aliens.” “Then I found myself in the same situation, and I thought, ‘Here we go again.’” Months before the film’s June release, little is still known in Hollywood about the 3-D “Prometheus,” whose ensemble cast includes Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron and Idris Elba. The movie was initially billed as a prequel to ...

GUEST ESSAY Ridley Scott just presented “Prometheus” to Hall H fans at Comic-Con, and that has Finland’s Juhani Nurmi, a journalist and devoted fan of “Alien,” looking back in horror – and appreciation.  “In space, no one can hear you scream.” That’s the best movie slogan I know, and in my book, nothing else comes even close. Ditto for the poster (designed by legendary graphic artist Bill Gold), which is sinister yet elegant in its minimalism. It depicts a luminescent egg floating in a dark void, above a grate. Obviously, we’re talking about Ridley Scott’s “Alien.” This year marks the movie’s 32nd anniversary and more than that, the movie is back in the pop culture conversation with new urgency as Ridley Scott toils in Iceland on “Prometheus,” the 2012 release that began life as a straight prequel but  has now reportedly morphed into something ...

Ridley Scott knows how to make an entrance even when he doesn’t show up. To tell Comic-Con International fans about his upcoming movie “Prometheus,” the filmmaker appeared via satellite Tuesday from Iceland, standing in front of a waterfall with his leading lady, “Girl With a Dragon Tattoo’s” Noomi Rapace, who was wrapped in a puffy coat and confessed to a little disorientation at addressing the expo’s Hall H audience of 6,500-plus in the midst of shooting. “I just came back from space,” Rapace said. “It feels really weird to come back to Earth again.” “Lost” co-creator Damon Lindelof, who wrote the screenplay for “Prometheus,” moderated the conversation, with another of the film’s stars, Charlize Theron, on stage. “I realized that there was something in the original ‘Alien’ that no one has asked a question about,” Scott said, explaining what sparked ...

Four years before Mickey Mouse made his debut in “Steamboat Willie” in 1928, Walt Disney wrote a letter to his old friend Ub Iwerks, urging him to come to California and join his studio. Iwerks agreed, and the pair soon set about developing Mickey’s personality and bringing him to life on paper. Now, that 1924 letter is on the block, with a pre-sale estimate of $60,000 to $80,000, at a memorabilia auction next weekend. The auction is being held by Profiles in History, run by appraiser Joe Maddalena of “Hollywood Treasure” fame, on May 14-15 at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills, as well as online. Among the items up for bid are signed, original animation cels from Disney movies, including the classics “Cinderella” and “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (around $20,000 each). Also on the block: the fully-operational ...

No one plays their cards closer to the vest than J.J. Abrams, and that’s why “Super 8,” which arrives in theaters June 10, is still a bit of a mystery to most moviegoers even in this age of relentless ramp-up hype and show-everything movie trailers. The director of “Star Trek” and co-creator of “Lost” has only talked a bit about the film, but we know it’s a small-town coming-of-age story told against the backdrop of an alien-on-the-loose adventure and involves the spectacular wreck of a secret government train in 1979. The filmmaker winces watching the marketing saturation of contemporary summer movies that may accomplish the job of filling theaters but also saps the magic revelation of movies — he misses the days when audiences bought a ticket and sat down in the dark both literally and figuratively: “To me, all people need to know ...

In West L.A., everybody can hear you scream.  On Friday, the Royal Theatre in West Los Angeles presents “The Alien Trilogy.”  First up at 7 p.m. is Ridley Scott’s director’s cut of his 1979 blockbuster “Alien,” followed at 9:35 p.m. by James Cameron’s pulsating 1986 sequel “Aliens,” for which Sigourney Weaver earned a lead actress Oscar nomination. Her character, of course, was the fearless Ellen Ripley, who was ranked fifth by Entertainment Weekly on its list of “The 20 All Time Coolest Heroes in Pop Culture.” And finally at 12:30 a.m. is David Fincher’s first film, “Alien3” from 1992, which also stars Weaver. For more information, there’s the website for the Royal Theatre or call (310) 478-3836. – Susan King RECENT AND RELATED Scream 2010: Sigourney Weaver reigns as queen of sci-fi Sigourney Weaver: “Space has been good to me” Is Milla Jovovich reaching ...

There are a half-dozen actors who might be crowned as the “King of Sci-Fi Films,” but a few of them, like Harrison Ford of “Star Wars” and “Blade Runner” fame, might run screaming from the genre’s throne room. There is only one true and rightful queen, however, and on Sunday night she emerged from a giant steaming alien egg at the Greek Theatre to warmly greet thousands of her adoring subjects. “I do love science fiction and the roles it presents for women,” Weaver said not long before walking out on stage at the Scream 2010 Awards, which air Tuesday on Spike TV and represent pop culture’s surging Comic-Con energy the same way the MTV Video Music Awards keyed to the shifting dynamics of the 1980s.  The sold-out crowd at the Greek cheered through a long rainy night – zombie make-up and lingerie, by the way, produce unpredictable ...