Prometheus Fun Facts

Gemma Arterton, Carey Mulligan, Olivia Wilde, Anne Hathaway, Abbie Cornish and Natalie Portman were considered for the role of Elizabeth Shaw. James Franco was considered for a role. Was originally intended as a prequel to Ridley Scott's Alien, but Scott decided to turn it into an original film with Noomi Rapace (who was already set to star in the prequel) still in the cast as one of five main characters. Some time later however it was confirmed that while the movie will take place in the same universe as Alien, and greatly reference that movie, it will, for the bigger part, be an original movie and not a direct prequel. Michelle Yeoh was originally considered for the role of Meredith Vickers. Ben Foster was rumored for a role. The androids' names in the Alien films follow an alphabetical pattern: in Alien it's Ash, in Aliens and Alien³ it's Bishop, in Alien: Resurrection it's Call and in this film it's David. Designer H.R. Giger, who worked on the original design of the Xenomorph Alien, was brought in to assist in reverse-engineering the design of the Aliens in the film. To prepare for his role as the android David, Michael Fassbender watched Blade Runner (a Ridley Scott film featuring androids) and also studied Olympic diver Greg Louganis, drawing inspiration from Louganis's physicality. Ridley Scott instructed Charlize Theron to stand in corners and move in lurking movements, in order to accentuate Vickers's distant, enigmatic nature. Director Ridley Scott named the film "Prometheus", seeing the name aptly fit the film's themes: "It's the story of creation; the gods and the man who stood against them." In Greek mythology, the Titan Prometheus was a servant of the gods, who stole and gave to mankind the gift of fire, an immeasurable benefit that changed the human race forever (for better AND worse). Ridley Scott decided against featuring Xenomorphs (the titular Alien of the franchise) in the film, as "one's now in Disneyland, and no way am I going back there." Instead, this being an indirect prequel to Alien, he decided to feature an Xenomorph ancestor/parent. During production, Ridley Scott and Damon Lindelof kept the use of computer-generated imagery as low as possible, using CGI mainly in space scenes; Scott recalled advice VFXpert Douglas Trumbull gave him on the set of Blade Runner: "If you can do it live, do it live", and also claimed that practical VFX was more cost-effective than digital VFX. The trivia items below may give away important plot points. According to Ridley Scott, the film's plot was inspired by academic Erich von Däniken's writings about ancient astronauts: "Both NASA and the Vatican agree that it is almost mathematically impossible that we can be where we are today, without there being a little help along the way. That's what we're looking at: we are talking about gods and engineers, engineers of space. Were the Aliens designed as a form of biological warfare, or biology that would go in and clean up a planet?" The "beginning of time" sequence that opens the film was shot in Iceland. The whole shoot took two weeks to complete.