Ridley Scott’s Prometheus marks an exciting return to the Alien universe, but the prequel picture is full of surprises, like the fact that Guy Pearce plays a character who is more than two-and-a-half times his age: 104 years old.

The Alien franchise features some incredible movies and some of the most iconic monsters in all of science fiction and horror, but over time the series’ impact has slowly been diluted by sequels with diminishing returns and average crossover efforts. What’s so incredible about the Alien universe is that, despite any misfires, there’s still intense passion for the material because of the creative and frightening world that’s been created. Ridley Scott wanted to get the series back to its roots, while also examining some deep existential questions about the nature of humanity, which resulted in the prequel, Prometheus.

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Prometheus and its sequel, Alien: Covenant, take the franchise back to its horror roots, but incorporate a heavy backbone of science fiction in terms of not only the questions about evolution that it explores, but also with the highly advanced future technology of Weyland Technologies. Weyland’s presence was merely a background element of the original Alien films’ lore, but Prometheus makes the company and its founder, Peter Weyland, important players. Peter Weyland is crucial figure in the history of Alien and so it makes sense that Scott would want some serious talent for the role. However, it’s hard to even tell who plays the part because of the heavy makeup that they’re underneath.

Prometheus Cast Guy Pearce As A 104-Year-Old Man

Guy Pearce is cast as Peter Weyland, the visionary with a God complex that sets Prometheus’ plot into motion. However, Weyland is 104 years old and after the five hours of makeup that the 44-year-old Pearce had to undergo to get into character he’s very hard to recognize. This seems like a very unusual casting decision and before Pearce was locked in, Ridley Scott had considered Max Von Sydow for the role, who was nearly 40 years older than Pearce. Sydow ultimately wasn’t cast because, at the time, Prometheus’ script was also supposed to feature scenes from the younger years of Weyland’s life.

Prometheus’ script went through extensive revisions throughout its development and the decision to remove Weyland scenes isn’t exactly surprising. Curiously, the only time that Pearce doesn’t appear in his elderly makeup was during ancillary promotional material for the movie. A fictitious TED Talk shows Peter Weyland in his prime as he sets up the premise for the movie. It’s not hard to imagine that this fun piece of marketing was actually a scene from the film that was edited out, then repurposed. It makes for an interesting reveal for anyone who didn’t realize Guy Pearce plays the part of Peter Weyland, and makes his role in Prometheus still feel like a bit of a secret.

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Daniel Kurland
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Daniel Kurland is a freelance writer, comedian, and critic, who lives in the cultural mosaic that is Brooklyn, New York. Daniel’s work can be read on ScreenRant, Splitsider, Bloody Disgusting, Den of Geek, and across the Internet. He recently completed work on a noir anthology graphic novel titled, “Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Noir: A Rag of Bizarre Noir and Hard Boiled Tales” and he’s currently toiling away on his first novel.

Daniel knows that “Psycho II” is better than the original, that the finale of “How I Met Your Mother” doesn’t deserve the hate that it receives, and that Garth Ennis’ run of “Animal Man” may be the best superhero story of all time. He’s a fan of white grape juice and appreciates a good Fuji apple.

The owls are not what they seem.

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