In presenting his new film, Prometheus, at Comic-Con, Ridley Scott was torn between building excitement for the presumed Alien prequel and keeping the project shrouded in secrecy.
What he did decide to show, including footage of stars Charlize Theron, Idris Elba and Michael Fassbender bouncing around in retro spacesuits, looked amazing, even if details about the film were sparse.
“Ridley has been sort of very cryptically obtuse about everything, and he will probably kill us if we say too much about the movie,” screenwriter Damon Lindelof said. “If you were looking for answers, you came to the wrong place.”
Theron was equally circumspect. When asked if she could share any details about her character, Meredith Vickers, she replied, “No, I can’t, sorry. I’m just here to be pretty.”
One thing she would share, though was that she wasn’t sure about playing Vickers — the “suit” behind the film’s expedition — at least not as she was originally written. “Obviously I wanted to work with [Scott], but I felt like the character was a little one-dimensional,” she admitted, explaining that Scott quickly set Lindelof to work fleshing out the character. “I can’t tell you what he came up with, but he came up with some good ****,” she said. “She kind of starts out one thing and ends up another thing, and it’s a pretty nice surprise. I don’t want to ruin that for you.”
Another thing the panel didn’t want to ruin was the meaning behind the title. “Part of the fun of the movie is understanding exactly why we called it Prometheus,” Lindelof said. “And also it sounds really pretentious, like Inception. Like, ‘Yeah! That makes the movie sound really smart! It’s so much better than my original title, Explosion.’”
One thing Lindelof did want to clear up, though, is that Prometheus is not really the Alien prequel people have been saying it is, even if the project originally started that way. “Although there might be some familiar things from the Alien universe, this movie has a heart and mind of its own,” Lindelof said. Still, they’re not entirely unconnected: “If you’re a fan of the original film, there will be little Easter eggs in there for you to find,” Lindelof said.
Comic-Con panels are really more about whetting audience appetites than doling out details, and Scott, who appeared via satellite from Iceland, stayed true to that. “There is the DNA of the original Alien. That’s as far as it goes,” the director said, teasing that a big question from the first two Alien movies will finally be answered. “In the last few minutes of the movie, you’ll understand what I’m talking about.”
One thing that was revealed in the footage was a lot of Theron’s skin, as one clip showed her exercising in next to nothing. “When I’m naked, I really like to do push-ups,” she joked. Not that nudity has every really bothered the South African native. “I don’t know how much of it is cultural or where you were raised,” said Theron, who admitted that 12 years as a ballerina may have helped her not worry so much about how much she’s wearing. “Look, it’s not like I f*cking love being naked. I’m totally insecure like every other woman.” But she’s all for on-screen — with a few conditions: “I’ve never been in a position where I’ve been like, ‘This doesn’t feel right.’ I wouldn’t do it if I felt that,” she said. “I like the shock value of it. I think that if you use it correctly, it’s really effective. As long as I’m lit really, really, really well.”
But that doesn’t mean the actress spent a long time at the gym before shooting. “In the third act, I have to do a little bit of running and stuff,” she said, hinting that her character might not spend as much time behind a desk as she’d like us to believe. “And I **** you not, I am bruised from head to toe. So maybe I should’ve gotten in shape for the film.”