Michael Fassbender

Tomas Alfredson ain’t prolific, but he sure is good at what he does. It’s been six years since the Swedish director’s last film, the brilliantly slippery espionage yarn Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and before that, he put a novel spin on the vampire flick with the gentle, poetic Let the Right One In. The news of another project from the elusive filmmaker is cause for great commotion, and the newly revealed trailer for that film — frost-choked serial killer thriller The Snowman — reminds us why. It has a lot to do with snow, and a lot to do with Michael Fassbender.

For those of you who read the comics, you’ll know that Magneto doesn’t really feature that prominently in X-Men’s Dark Phoenix storyline. But because Michael Fassbender is such a star, and because Magneto and Professor X’s relationship with each other is so integral to the X-Men film series, it sounds like Magneto’s gong to have a much bigger role in turning Jean Grey over to the Dark Side.

Even when the recent X-Men movies have veered into nigh-unwatchable territory (lookin’ at you, Apocalypse), Michael Fassbender gives us a reason to stick it out. The consistently compelling actor can make even the most lackluster films more interesting, and whatever your feelings are about some of his movies, I think we can all agree that Fassbender is always great. So it’s definitely not disappointing to learn that he may very well be reprising his role as the young(er) Magneto in the next X-Men movie.

Michael Fassbender is about to grace our silver screens once again in Alien: Covenant, playing an android named Walter, a synthetic engineered to assist spacefaring humans on their long journeys to distant planets. He’s established himself as a great dramatic/genre actor, even becoming a cornerstone of the X-Men franchise. But there’s one kind of movie he has yet to dip a toe into, though he}d very much like to. Yes, folks, Michael Fassbender wants to get into comedy.

The title of Alien: Covenant directly refers to the spaceship carrying the film’s human characters, and indirectly refers to the film’s most pervasive theme: The tense relationship between gods and their creations. Students of the Old Testament learn about God’s covenant with Abraham, which promised the prophet the land of Israel in exchange for, among other things, his male descendants’ foreskin. Some gods work in mysterious ways; the ones in Alien: Covenant certainly do.

“Wait, but what happened to Dr. Elizabeth Shaw?” That’s been one of our biggest questions in the months leading up to the release of Alien: Covenant, which introduces us to a new crew and inches ever closer to the events in Ridley Scott’s sci-fi horror classic. In honor of Alien Day, 20th Century Fox has released a new prologue that helps bridge the gap between Prometheus and Covenant…and reveals the fate of Noomi Rapace’s Dr. Shaw.

With Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant, you’ll get two Michael Fassbenders for the price of one. What a deal!

As promised, the latest chapter in Ridley Scott’s Alien will introduce a new iteration (evolution? variation?) of the classic Xenomorph — the Neomorph. This one is just as terrifying as its sleek predecessors, but unlike those iconic creatures, the Neomorph is leaner and more…limber (so to speak), its body a shade of unnerving white instead of black. Until now, the Neomorph has been only briefly spotted in trailers, but new photos from Alien: Covenant reveal our best (and bloodiest) look yet at the crew’s formidable antagonist.

Xenomorphs aren’t the most welcoming neighbors. They’re not going to leave a basket of freshly baked cookies on your porch or invite you to the weekend barbecue; they’re going to skip right ahead to eating you for the barbecue. Too bad the crew of the Covenant thought otherwise when they landed on a new alien-infested planet in Ridley Scott’s latest.

When an actor works with Terrence Malick it means throwing out everything they’ve ever learned in drama school or on a film set. Whatever script they might have initially read goes out the window, and Malick asks his performers to just, be. Maybe he’ll hand an actor a scrap of paper with am aphorism written across it. Maybe he’ll give them some minor stage direction, then let the camera follow from there. Michael Fassbender recently described Malick’s style as giving his cast “flavors as opposed to direct commands or instructions.” Some actors love it; others notoriously hate it.