Ridley Scott Says ‘Blade Runner’ Sequel To Feature Female Protagonist + Kick-Ass New ‘Prometheus’ Poster

As the release of “Prometheus,” Ridley Scott’s first sci-fi movie in 30 years, quickly approaches, the journeyman director is opening up about his return to the genre, sharing details about his upcoming “Blade Runner” sequel, and dropping hints about what he’s going to be working on with Angelina Jolie. Plus, a new international "Prometheus" poster has arrived that abandons much of the mystical approach of the previous posters and goes with something everyone can appreciate: spaceships blowing up.

In a fairly lengthy interview with The Daily Beast, in which they erroneously introduce the filmmaker as “the closest thing to this generation’s Kubrick” (we’re pretty sure Kubrick wouldn’t have done “A Good Year” or “Matchstick Men”), Scott says that he doesn’t begrudge the studio for shitty sequels and spin-offs of his original “Alien” (things like the disastrous “Alien vs. Predator” movies). “Listen, you do whatever you gotta do to keep something going, and I don’t do that. I tend to make the film and move on,” Scott said, before defaulting to his “is it even a prequel?” talk that has pretty much been ruled out by common sense and, you know, watching the trailers. “Ironically, here we are over 30 years later and I think you might not even argue it’s a prequel.”

And speaking of prequels and sequels and robots (wait, were we talking about robots?), Scott next plans to relaunch the “Blade Runner” franchise with a new take on the material. While it hasn’t been decided if it’s going to be a sequel or a prequel (and his rather, er, contentious relationship with the original film’s leading man Harrison Ford seems to suggest that he won’t be involved at all, despite initial reports), Scott has at least decided on one thing – the gender of the protagonist. “Funny enough, I started my first meetings on the ‘Blade Runner’ sequel last week,” Scott said. (Notice the use of the word ‘sequel!’ Everything must be cataloged!) He continued: “We have a very good take on it. And we’ll definitely be featuring a female protagonist.”

So there you have it. Probably not Deckard, then, since he was decidedly lacking in the lovely lady lumps department.

When asked about his upcoming thriller “The Counselor,” based on an original screenplay by Cormac McCarthy, which was at one point set to star Angelina Jolie, Scott does the old duck and weave, acknowledging that he is intent on working with the mega-watt star but not saying anything about her involvement in “The Counselor.” “I’m working on a project with Angelina Jolie called ‘Gertrude Bell,’” Scott said, when asked about a different movie altogether. This was a previously announced project that we haven’t heard much about in a while, so maybe he’s still very intent on doing it? Scott went on to describe the project as “a very interesting period piece of a woman in the 1900s whose tramping ground was very much part of Mesopotamia, which we now know of as Iraq. She’s involved with a person called King Faisal, and she was partly instrumental in seeing him to the throne of Iraq.” Sounds pretty fascinating to us, although we’re still a little burned by the theatrical cut of “Kingdom of Heaven.”

But there’s more! Fox’s marketing team, apparently weary of all that mystery and atmosphere that’s been forming around “Prometheus,” decided to say “fuck it,” and just released an international poster showing two spaceships colliding with one another, and our comely space travelers heading for the hills (courtesy of First Showing). It’s a pretty cool poster, subtlety be damned, and even though it could be a potentially huge spoiler (since it looks to us like the Prometheus space ship colliding with the space jockey’s craft), we’re still pretty jazzed about its inclusion in the nearly peerless marketing lead-up to the movie.