Alien: Covenant won’t be pulling any punches in the gore department. In fact, it’ll probably be hugging lots of faces instead. It’s not often you can tally up just how much blood will appear in a movie but the producers of Alien: Covenant have a pretty good idea. It more than deserves its R-rating once you see just how much of the red stuff is lying about on-set (hint: it involves oil drums).
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Producer Mark Huffam opened up (perhaps that’s the wrong choice of words) to SFX Magazine about just how much blood is going to be in the Alien prequel: “If you like blood, we’re not going to leave you unsatisfied.”
So how much blood is enough? A few gallons would probably be okay, right? Wrong. “Our blood comes in 40-gallon drums, rather than 5-gallon containers.” says Huffam. Holy moly, that’s a lot of blood.
The creature most likely to achieve a majority of the blood-letting, the iconic Xenomorph, is also on-set in the form of a mo-cap actor. Director Ridley Scott explains the choice to not go full-CGI on the titular alien is a means to create unpredictability: “Sometimes the physicality of an actor doing something odd that you haven’t thought of, or you don’t want to do digitally, is useful.”
Barrels of blood and a physical, unpredictable alien? Sign me up.
For more on Alien: Covenant, read the goretastic feature in the latest issue of SFX magazine, on sale now. Buy future issues here.
Image: 20th Century Fox
