Late last month the official Alien Twitter account put out the image above; that of Danny McBride conferring with Alien: Covenant director Ridley Scott on what looks like the bridge of the eponymous ship. We figured then that he might be the ship's pilot, and indeed he's now confirmed that.
Talking to Rolling Stone about his new TV comedy Vice Principals, McBride elaborated (at least as much as he could) on his role. "I’m the pilot of the spaceship Covenant, which is a colonization ship, searching for a planet where we might start life anew. I run the ship." And from the sounds of it, the shoot has been more practical than he anticipated. "I didn't know if it would be all green screen, but most of the stuff is practical effects: when you're running from an alien it's really a dude in an alien suit coming after you! The sets are incredible and you're in them: We go through some inclement weather at one point on the spaceship and this whole gigantic set is on a gimbal, shaking up and down. You don't have to use your imagination."
Talking of those alien suits, the Twitter account has just posted a new behind-the-scenes image of a recognizable clawed arm being worked on.
Alien: Covenant will be out on August 4 next year. Finally, there is more news from the world of the Xenomorphs, as Entertainment Weekly brings word that Sigourney Weaver, James Cameron, Gale Anne Hurd, Bill Paxton, Lance Henriksen and more will participate in a 30th anniversary Aliens panel at this year's San Diego Comic-Con. Expect stories from that, but also questions to be asked about Neill Blomkamp's plans to continue the story in a new way away from Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection with Sigourney Weaver back as Ripley. Weaver would only offer this: "It’s just as if, you know, the path forks and one direction goes off to three and four and another direction goes off to Neill’s movie." Now he just has to get the thing made...