After all the difficulty that Alfonso Cuaron supposedly had finding a female lead for Gravity, it now sounds like Ridley Scott is experiencing a similar dilemma for his as-of-yet untitled Alien prequel. He has reportedly met with a number of actresses to fill the shoes of Sigourney Weaver (the character they are playing will be a female Colonial Marine general, not literally a young Ripley since the movie is set 35 years earlier). A lot of the same names mentioned as possibilities for Gravity have come up here as well, including Natalie Portman, Carey Mulligan, Anne Hathaway and Olivia Wilde. However, according to the most recent update from Deadline New York, it sounds like Scott’s current frontrunner is Noomi Rapace, star of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Rapace landed her first Hollywood role in Sherlock Holmes 2 earlier this year, and she is continuing to have even more opportunities thrown at her. Personally I think it’s hard to argue with her as a new Ripley of sorts… her performance as Lisbeth Salander presents one of the strongest female characters we’ve seen on screen in quite some time. The question is, will the studio agree that she can sell the film?

Hopefully the Alien name alone will handle that part. Damon Lindelof recently rewrote the script for the movie and Fox apparently loves it. For one thing, it does not have a ton of expensive set pieces in it. It is also a return to the franchise’s horror-suspense roots, which I think is exciting. Are you looking forward to the Alien prequel, and do you think Noomi Rapace is a good choice to star?

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