Ridley Scott’s ‘Alien: Covenant’ just cast a Queen of Earth in the lead role

Katherine Waterston, who turned in a powerhouse performance in Alex Ross Perry's underappreciated 2015 indie “Queen of Earth” opposite Elisabeth Moss, is heading to space for director Ridley Scott.

The actress, whose other credits include “Inherent Vice” and “Steve Jobs,” has been cast in the lead role of “Daniels” in the director's forthcoming “Alien: Covenant,” a sequel to 2012's “Prometheus” that will see the crew of a colony ship traveling to a seeming paradise that turns out to be a “dark, dangerous world” likely inhabited by every type of xenomorph, as Scott previously disclosed. The film will feature the return of Michael Fassbender's sinister “synthetic” David, though the extent of “Prometheus” survivor Elizabeth Shaw's (Noomi Rapace) involvement has yet to be disclosed.

The news was first reported by Deadline.

Here's the official synopsis:

“Ridley Scott returns to the universe he created in ALIEN with ALIEN: COVENANT, the second chapter in a prequel trilogy that began with PROMETHEUS – and connects directly to Scott”s 1979 seminal work of science fiction. Bound for a remote planet on the far side of the galaxy, the crew of the colony ship Covenant discovers what they think is an uncharted paradise, but is actually a dark, dangerous world – whose sole inhabitant is the “synthetic” David (Michael Fassbender), survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition.”

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