'Alien: Covenant': release date, cast, plot and everything you need to know

It's official. This year is going to be amazing for movie enthusiasts as scary aliens are back in the sequel to Ridley Scott's 1978 movie "Alien." It will be very interesting to see what Scott has in mind after so many years. The movie premieres on May 19, 2017 and this is what we know about it so far.

Colonization mission went wrong

“Alien: Covenant” is about a first ever large-scale colonization mission on a ship called Covenant.

The crew discovers a planet on the far side of the galaxy and when they land on it, everything seems perfect for them to colonize the place. There is a lot of water, forests, air and even wheat. However, they soon discover that things are not that ideal after all. In the beginning, the silence indicates that the planet has no inhabitants, not even animals. Later, they find out that the planet’s sole inhabitant is “synthetic” David, a survivor of the doomed “Prometheus” expedition.

Of course, Xenomorphs come to the party and make things super scary. Besides all the terrifying alien violence, the movie also tries to answer the question of how we were created and who created us as they talk about the Engineers who are supposed to be creators of all life forms.

Ridley Scott explains that even Stephen Hawking says he is no longer sure about the big bang, so we have to try to find answers by ourselves.

Only two characters from the prequels survived

When it comes to the cast, there are not many surviving characters from “Prometheus” or other prequels that could be joining in. Only two stars made it to the end, namely Noomi Rapace (Dr. Elizabeth Shaw) and Michael Fassbender (David). Initially, Dr. Elizabeth Shaw was not included in the story and she wasn’t even credited in the first trailer. Later on, she was spotted on the set in Australia and then they added her on the IMDb listing of the movie.

Due to the misfortune of characters from the prequels, “Alien: Covenant” will be introducing a lot of new ones.

Katherine Waterston will star as one of the crew members of the Covenant, and from what we saw in the trailer she could be another of Ridley’s tough female heroines. Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, Demian Bichir, and Carmen Ejogo will also be joining Waterston as new cast members. Filming began in April 2016 and the shoot is taking place in Australia and New Zealand. Though they planned to release the film on the 4th of August, Fox changed the date and scheduled the premiere in May.