Danny McBride to join ‘Alien Covenant’ with Michael Fassbender
Michael Fassbender will return for Ridley Scott‘s Prometheus sequel Alien: Covenant, and the addition of Katherine Waterston as his new leading lady wasn’t exactly surprising after the loss of Noomi Rapace.
Now, the newest new cast member is definitely unexpected as Danny McBride is reportedly in talks to join the Sci-fi adventure. McBride is best known for comedy projects like Eastbound and Down.
TheWrap reports McBride is “in early discussions” for Alien: Covenant and McBride’s potential role has not been revealed.
Picking up about ten years after the events of Prometheus, Alien: Covenant follows a colony ship called the Covenant that lands on a seeming paradise. But the new world turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than the crew initially suspected, and its sole inhabitant is David — the devious android who survived the doomed expedition chronicled in Prometheus.
Alien: Covenant is expected to bridge the gap between Prometheus and the Alien films. Prometheus ended with David and Elizabeth Shaw setting out for the Engineers’ home planet in search of answers. As mentioned above, Rapace, who played Elizabeth, isn’t expected to appear in the sequel. What’s happened to Elizabeth in the years since, is just another mystery waiting to be revealed in Alien: Covenant.
McBride has occasionally appeared in dramas like All the Real Girls and As I Lay Dying, but his resume mostly consists of comedies including Your Highness and Pineapple Express. He’s reuniting with HBO for the new comedy series Vice Principals. He’ll also be heard this year in two animated movies, Angry Birds and Sausage Party.
It’s noteworthy that Scott’s The Martian is an outer-space adventure that was so funny the Golden Globes deemed it a comedy. Perhaps that experience convinced him that a comedy actor was just what he needed to spice up Alien: Covenant.
Alien: Covenant shoots this spring for release on October 6, 2017 from 20th Century Fox.