‘Alien: Covenant’ Will Not Bring Back Noomi Rapace After All

Although Ridley Scott recently said that Noomi Rapace would reprise her role — albeit briefly — as Dr. Elizabeth Shaw in Alien: Covenant, the director has now determined that the actress will actually not be returning for the upcoming Prometheus sequel / Alien prequel. Many assumed we might see how her ill-advised adventure with Michael Fassbender’s David panned out, though it’s fair to assume that things didn’t go so well.

Scott told the Daily Mail (via Yahoo) that Rapace will not be returning for Alien: Covenant, and added that he’s still casting the main characters for the film, which includes Fassbender reprising his role as mischievous synthetic David and his Steve Jobs co-star Katherine Waterston as the leader of a new crew of explorers.

The director also previously revealed that the new film is set about 10 years after the events of Prometheus, when a derelict crew happens upon a seemingly uncharted paradise and soon discovers that David is the planet’s only inhabitant — which sounds pretty unnerving. It would also seem that David hastily dispatched with Dr. Elizabeth Shaw, and though Rapace is not returning, it’s unclear if Covenant will explain exactly what happened to her (David totally killed her, duh).

Scott has also promised that the new trilogy of films will explore the origins of both the Xenomorphs and the Engineers, and will feature all forms of Xenomorph from egg to chest-burster to Queen.

Alien: Covenant begins shooting this spring for a 2017 release date.