Charlize Theron Beats Out Angelina Jolie For Role in Alien Prequel Prometheus

For me, the most exciting updates in the last two weeks regarding Ridley Scott’s development of the Alien prequel Prometheuswas the news that Charlize Theron and Angeline Jolie were in competition for one of the major roles in the film.  Yes, it will be weird having an Alien film without 6’1 Sigourney Weaver in it, but now is as good a time as any to sex it up a bit, am I right?

Well, it was announced this week that Charlize Theron had scored one of the two female leads in the film, along with Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’sNoomi Rapace.  Not sure why the studio chose Theron over Jolie (frankly, if they were looking to add the lust factor to the film, Jolie might have been the better choice), but I have a few ideas.

For one thing, Theron’s acting credentials are a tad superior to those of Angelina Jolie, with the Oscar-winning actress capable and inclined to tackle roles with a little more substance than Jolie.  Yes, Jolie kicked but in Salt but Theron’s CV includes films like Monster and North Country.

This leads in to the second reason for why Theron likely won out over Jolie.  As much as the world loves Angelina, having her in the film instantly brands the picture as “mainstream Hollywood blockbuster” whereas director Ridley Scott has made it clear that he hopes to take a film in a slightly different direction, crafting a film that is ahead of its time.

The third and simplest reason for why Theron might have won out over Jolie is that Angelina (burdened with babies like the head of a Third World orphanage) demands more cash for a film role than Theron and perhaps the studio did not want to dish out the dollars that Angelina was looking for, while Theron was willing to negotiate.  We know that Theron likes to take roles in smaller films occasionally, so I am sure she was flexible.

Then, of course, there is the possibility that Jolie had a scheduling conflict and could not actually commit to the film for that reason, but that’s not exciting, is it?

As of yet, there is no word on the precise plot of the film.  The studio and the team behind the screenplay have been super hush-hush when it comes to the storyline with Scott revealing only that the film will “utilize Alien DNA” but will otherwise be entirely different, leading to that sinking suspicion that there would be no xenomorphs in the film at all, a suspicion which the director later dispelled.