by mr.negativity » Wed Oct 13, 2010 2:43 am
Vulture Exclusive:
[quote="Claude Brodesser-Akner"]
Vulture just got word: Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof turned in his new draft of the screenplay for Ridley Scott's Alien prequel on Saturday, and 20th Century Fox execs are very pleased with it indeed! We’re told all involved parties have been made to sign nondisclosure agreements about the plot, but our spies have been able to glean several interesting nuggets about the project, which is set roughly 35 years before Scott’s dystopic classic. Here's what we know ...
One reason Fox execs are so thrilled with Lindelof’s Alien draft is that, not only is it creatively engaging, but it adds no expensive "set pieces" — production-speak for elaborate, effects-heavy action sequences that add millions to the cost of a film — to the movie. 20th Century Fox and Scott have been wrangling over the director’s proposed budget. One insider familiar with the situation puts Scott’s suggested budget at between $150 million and $160 million; Fox obviously, would like that number to shrink. Still, this is some good news for Fox, which has almost nothing resembling a blockbuster in the hopper for the summer of 2012, and could certainly stand to reinvigorate a wildly popular multi-part sci-fi franchise.
A parade of actresses have met with Scott (who's being represented in these negotiations by his longtime WME agent George Freeman) to discuss the lead role — that of a female Colonial Marine general — but only two have engendered substantial enthusiasm from both Fox brass and Ridley Scott Associates, the director’s Fox-based production company: Vulture can report exclusively that at the top of the list is Natalie Portman. (She recently detached herself from the adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies at Lionsgate Films out of concern that she was now too old to play the part of Jane Austen’s Elizabeth Bennet. Portman turns 30 next June; Bennet is only 20 in both Austen and Grahame-Smith’s versions of Pride.) Right behind Portman is the already-reported Noomi Rapace, star of David Fincher’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.
Don’t take Scott’s recent interview with The Independent — in which he claims that the Alien prequel would be “will be really tough, really nastyâ€