I haven’t covered Ridley Scott’s Prometheus much, mainly because trying to understand anything about it has been exhausting, and I don’t feel like wasting that kind of energy on a guy whose last movie was Robin Hood. Suffice to say, it might be a prequel to 1979′s Alien. It was co-written by Damon Lindelof (of Lost and Cowboys and Aliens), so between all the space polar bears, time travel, and people becoming unstuck in time, it might be hard to determine whether it’s technically a prequel or something else, and that’s the reason they’re not saying.

In any case, Entertainment Weekly has a first look at some stills from the film, which appear to show Michael F. Assbender and Stringer Bell staring at a big giant head. Here’s how ThePlaylist describes it:

The first photo shows weary space travelers Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace, from the original “Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”), her lover Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green), and her faithful robot butler, er, android companion David (Michael Fassbender). They’re wearing space suits that carry with it the same worn future aesthetic that made “Alien” so transfixing, and they’re all goggling at…something.
That “something” seems to be the giant mythic head in “The Ampule Room.” For those of who didn’t major in science, an ampule is a small glass vial used to preserve a sample, usually of a liquid. Both the title of the movie and the cryptic messages that have leaked out from those close to the movie suggest some truly cosmic, how-we-all-came-to-be overtones to the movie, and this could be a clue — what exactly is the Ampule Room keeping in? Besides that giant head?

Yeah… I’m just going to translate all that as “we still don’t know sh*t.” But it opens in summer 2012, so I’m sure we can look forward to a full year of speculating! Hopefully it’s about the search for Michael Fassbender’s huge wang, and Ice Cube shows up in a supporting role to say stuff like, “So exackly how big is diss snake?”

[scans via ShockTillYaDrop]

Back in March, I brought you the news that black giant Broderick Johnson and white midget Andrew Kosove from Alcon Entertainment were planning to make a new Blade Runner movie. Today, Deadline reports that original Blade Runner director Ridley Scott has signed on to direct and produce, once he finishes Prometheus, his Alien prequel for Fox. Well, it’s nice to see that Sir Ridley isn’t just coasting by on his past successes. Hey, has anyone remade Gladiator yet?

I’m not getting a clear sense at this point whether Scott intends to do a sequel or a prequel to the 1982 film that was loosely based on the Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The original took place in dystopian Los Angeles in 2019, in which organic superhuman robots called replicants escaped and are hiding somewhere on earth.  Ford played Richard Deckard, a burnt out blade runner assigned to hunt them down. His tired life gets altered when he himself falls for one of the replicants and struggles to keep her from being destroyed.

This is just the first step and the project will have to be written and it will likely evolve during that process. That’s what happened on Alien, which began as a prequel to his 1979 classic. That changed when Lost‘s Damon Lindelof came in with a different take on the subject matter that imprinted on Scott and Fox  executives. [HOW 'BOUT IT ALSO HAS COWBOYS???] They wound up making Prometheus, which Fox considers an original but which I’ve heard is a cousin to the original Alien franchise. That film will be released June 8, 2012, with Charlize Theron, Michael Fassbender, Noomi Rapace, Patrick Wilson, Idris Elba and Guy Pearce starring. [Deadline]

Yeeeeah… I’ll believe it when I see it. I can’t even count the number of projects Ridley Scott has supposedly been attached to in the last three or four years. Here‘s a story about him being attached to a Cold War drama called Reykjavik. Here‘s him attached to Call of Duty Elite. Here‘s his “Blade Runner of Monopoly movies”. Here‘s him discussing adapting Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridien. Here‘s the Brave New World movie he was supposedly producing. Here‘s a vampire movie he was supposedly going to direct. Here‘s a list of nine other projects he was supposedly attached to at some point. And that’s if he ever finishes that sequel to his Robin Hood origin story that everyone’s been clamoring for. This guy talks about stuff he’ll never do more than Tarantino on a coke binge, and all of it seems to be a readaptation, reimagination, sequel, spiritual cousin, gritty reboot, or 300-style prequel of some sh*t he already made 20 years ago. Call me when he starts filming Broderick Johnson chasing Andrew Kosove around the room with an oversized mallet while Kosove spills acorns from his overfilled pockets, otherwise I don’t care.

It’s Tuesday, so it must be time for another installment of FilmDrunk’s favorite game – Will Gemma Arterton’s Butt Be In An Alien Prequel Or Won’t It? Oh, we’ve never played that game? That’s because Vince always wants to play Tune In Tokyo. But today we shall play, because sources are reporting that Gemma is in talks to star in Ridley Scott’s Alien prequels. That’s right, plural on the prequel nod, which means we’re in for a slew of new acid-spewing space monsters, which is also Lamar Odom’s pet name for Khloe Kardashian.

According to Hollywood.com:

The actress told the British paper The Sunday Times that she was in discussions with Ridley Scott about starring in the upcoming prequels to his successful 1979 film, Alien. Supposedly, Scott was so impressed with Arterton’s talent after seeing her in The Disappearance of Alice Creed that he wanted to meet her in person to talk about the main female role. And that’s not too surprising, considering Arterton’s character spent the majority of Alice Creed nude and getting physically abused.

*adds The Disappearance of Alice Creed to Netflix 14 times*

And if there’s one thing we know as certain in this life, it’s that we can take actors and actresses at their words. So if Gemma says she’s in talks to star in the Alien prequels, then I assume that we can trust her… or can we? LIES! ALL LIES AFTER THE JUMP!

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Robin Hood: Anatomy of a Clusterf*ck Or Origin Story? More like BORE-igin story.

Robin Hood is a disaster. True, you might not notice it right away. You might make it through 40, 50 minutes, an hour of it without realizing it.  But like the women I make sex to, by the time it ends, you will be angry and disappointed, I guarantee it. If you aren’t, you weren’t paying attention. But hopefully, by remembering what happened here, we can prevent future disasters.  NEVER AGAIN.

A few years back, Kelsey Grammer starred in a fact-based movie for HBO about the Bradley fighting vehicle. The gist of it was that Kelsey Grammer was overseeing a big defense contract to create this new military vehicle. It started out as a troop transport, but somewhere along the way, someone suggested that it should also have a big gun. So they gave it a big gun. Then someone else said it should be really fast, to do reconnaissance, so they tried to make it light and fast. Then someone else said that in addition to being light, it should have heavy armor to protect the passengers, so they gave it more armor. They kept trying to implement all these suggestions, and a billion dollars later, they had “a troop transport that can’t carry troops, a reconnaissance vehicle that’s too conspicuous to do reconnaissance, and a quasi-tank that has less armor than a snowblower, but carries enough ammo to take out half of D.C.”

Robin Hood is that vehicle.

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Just beyond his co-star's shoulder, Russell Crowe spotted the last crab cake

A while back, I told you about Nicole LaPorte’s tell-all book about Dreamworks, specifically the part where she claims Steven Spielberg is obsessed with secrecy.  The book comes out next month, and Gawker today has a few new excerpts, these ones concerning Russell Crowe.  You’ll never believe this, but they paint him as quick to anger and a bit of a prima donna. I refused to believe it at first, and got so mad I threw a cell phone at my own reflection.

You motherf*cker. I will kill you with my bare hands.”
“Hello?” Branko Lustig said, confused and barely awake; it was, after all, 3 a.m. in England.
“You motherf*cker,” the speaker repeated.
“Who’s on the phone? Who is this?” Lustig demanded.
When Russell Crowe identified himself, the genuinely terrified Lustig, one of the producers of the about-to-be-filmed Gladiator, hung up and called Steven Spielberg in Los Angeles.
“Steven,” he said. “I’m leaving. Russell wants to kill me. I’m leaving.”
Having survived a concentration camp, Lustig was not taking any chances.
Crowe, not yet Russell Crowe, but still just another verkakte Australian coming off a sleeper (L.A. Confidential), was sour because he believed DreamWorks was low-balling his assistants on their per diems. Rather than raise this grievance at a mundane daylight hour, Crowe opted for a more dramatic statement, a tactic not unknown in these parts. The actor’s recent behavior had been erratic, just like everything else on the project.

Well that’s outrageous.  I’ve heard Nic Cage once threatened to kill someone with his bear hands, but he was just method acting on the set of Wicker Man. Haha, good one, Jay.  But wait!  There’s more!

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