FAQ

No. If you take a film's budget, and the cost of advertising (usually close to the budget of the film), so approximately another 100 million; bringing the film cost to approximately $230,000,000. If the film's worldwide gross was $403,000,000. That would be a profit of $173,000,000. Not including home release sales.

Why is a billionaire's yacht more advanced than a transport truck? That is essentially the comparison. The Nostromo was transporting ore back to earth. The crew were truckers. Their ship was simple and straightforward. It's also possible that the Nostromo was actually an older model than the Prometheus. Just still being in service.

The Prometheus was a brand new, state of the art science lab and exploration spacecraft.

No one has answered this question yet.

In the year 2093, after discovering evidence of yet another ancient star map in a cave on the Isle of Skye in Scotland, a team of scientific explorers, led by archeologists Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green), secure funding from the aging CEO of the Weyland Corporation, Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce), and journey on the spaceship Prometheus to the distant moon of LV-223 located 34.6 light-years from Earth, hoping to find the answers to humanity's origins. What they find convinces them that they have found the answers to human life, but what they learn also could lead to its extinction.

Prometheus is based on a screenplay by American screenwriters Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof. It is the fifth movie in the Alien franchise, preceded by Alien (1979), Aliens (1986), Alien³ (1992) and Alien Resurrection (1997) and followed by Alien: Covenant (2017). Prometheus is a actually a prequel to the original four Alien films and ignores the storylines of the Alien vs. Predator cinema franchise.

Prometheus is the name of the spaceship in which the exploration team travels, but the name actually has its origins in Greek mythology. Prometheus, a giant Titan born of Gaia (the earth), is credited with creating the human race from clay and stealing fire from the Gods to give to the humans. For this latter transgression, he was bound to a rock in the Underworld where an eagle would come to feed on his liver. The liver would grow back, but the eagle would return each day to feast on it again. The symbolism between the Titan Prometheus and the giant Engineer is obvious.

In a promotional short directed by Ridley Scott's son Luke Scott, Peter Weyland speaks at a TED Talk where he announces the technology his company has developed to create artificial human beings. In his speech, he mentions Prometheus.

When the project was initially greenlit, it was seen as two separate movies to be chronologically before the first Alien movie with director Ridley Scott staying on as producer. However, Fox wanted Scott in the director's chair so much that he eventually accepted under the condition that the script be heavily retooled to reflect the concepts that he wanted to explore. The result has been described as both a prequel and an original story. For instance, in an interview, Michael Fassbender confirmed that this is actually an Alien movie, taking place in the Alien universe. In July 2011, however, Scott stated in another interview that "by the end of the third act you start to realize there's a DNA of the very first Alien, but none of the subsequent (films)". The story itself takes place within the same universe albeit not directly connected to the events of Alien (1979), which takes place 30 years later. The film was supposed to cover the origins of the Weyland-Yutani Company. It shows glimpses and links in common with Alien, including imagery inspired by, if not designed and built by, H.R. Giger. Prometheus depicts the so-called "Space Jockey" in Alien as a member of an ancient race who are nicknamed "Engineers" by the Prometheus crew, and also suggests that the Engineers created the "xenomorphs" (the titular creature in the Alien films) as a biological weapon.

Not including the AVP films which are not considered canon, Prometheus takes place in 2093, Alien: Covenant (2017) in 2104, Alien (1979) in 2122, and Aliens (1986) in 2179 (57 years after Alien). Alien³ (1992) follows Aliens, but no timeframe is given other than that it takes place not long afterwards (most likely days or even hours later). Alien Resurrection (1997) takes place 200 years after Alien³, so the year in that movie is about 2380.

There had been talks of a fifth Alien movie for years, with alternating contributions from James Cameron and Ridley Scott, but neither Cameron nor Scott were supporters of the Alien/Predator crossover. Ultimately, the project was shelved when the studio opted to make the AVP movies first. After the disappointing box office from Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007), however, the studio shelved the AVP series to go back to the original plans for the Alien franchise, bringing back Scott as director.

It's said the AvP films are in a separate universe. But there's nothing that really contradicts them in this film.

The humanoid at the beginning of the movie is an Engineer, a member of an ancient race. While standing next to the top of a waterfall, he opens a small container of a moving black liquid and consumes it, as a large spaceship departs in the skies above him. After doing so, he retches and his body begins to disintegrate. Both he and the container fall into the waterfall, where his DNA is shown being released and dispersed into the water. Viewers may conclude that the scene is meant to show an Engineer sacrificing his life to create or modify life on that planet. Whether his sacrifice was an accident or an intentional act is unknown. In an extended scene on the DVD and Blu-ray disc editions, it shows another Engineer hand the container with the liquid to the one who sacrifices himself, suggesting that it might have been a ritualistic sacrifice or possibly a forced sacrifice.

It is likely to be Earth in the distant past, before man was created. As it looks very much like Earth and one of the main themes in the film is that the Engineers created humanity. Though it's entirely possible it was simply another earth-like planet the engineers spread their DNA to in order to create life.

The paintings were made by humans thousands of years ago, inspired by the god-like Engineers who visited them from the stars at intervals throughout Earth's history. Elizabeth Shaw interprets the paintings as an invitation to seek out the Engineers, a simple constellation map that humanity could use once they reached a level of intelligence and technology. However, it is entirely possible that Shaw misinterpreted this and that the paintings may have actually been a warning about the Engineers. This draws some similarities to the beginning of Alien (1979), where the crew of the Nostromo initially believes a signal to be a distress call only for it to actually be a warning.

According to the Corporate Timeline in the viral marketing website, Peter Weyland [was] born in Mumbai, India, on October 1st, 1990, to an Oxford-educated Professor of Comparative Mythology and a self-taught engineer. That makes him 103 years old in the film.

Prometheus and the Alien series do not acknowledge AVP as canon. But with a little unofficial speculation one can tie it all together: Charles Weyland is a character from Alien vs. Predator (2004). He was the original founder of Weyland Corporation and Bishop (from Aliens (1986) and Alien³ (1992)) is modeled on his likeness long after his death. Prometheus is considered by both Ridley Scott and the film's producers to be the first film in the Alien series. In this film, Peter Weyland is the CEO of Weyland Corporation (most likely re-establishing the company he inherited from Charles'), Bishop being an android built by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation later on. Bishop II claims to be the man who designed the Bishop Android. It's been a long-standing debate among fans whether Bishop II is telling the truth about this or if he's actually an Android himself, after all, his name is never mentioned in the film. Even if he's telling the truth, then he may simply be an employee of Weyland-Yutani and not related to Peter Weyland at all. In some complementary works to the Alien, "Bishop II" is referred to as Michael Weyland, so if that's the case he could be a great-nephew of Peter Weyland's, but as Peter Weyland mentioned he didn't have any sons, unless he had daughters who kept his name, Michael Weyland would likely not be a direct descendant.

Most likely, he believed he knew his way back to the exit and simply got lost. As he and Milburne left the area in a panicked state, they may have made at least one wrong turn. By the time Fifield and Milburn realized their mistake, a static storm was coming in and the rest of the team was in evacuation mode, which meant that they could not catch up with them since Shaw didn't realize that they had been left behind. It is also possible that the static storm could have affected their mapping receivers, much as it did aboard the Prometheus.

The film suggests that the mysterious black liquid in the canisters in the alien ship mutate any living organism it comes into contact with. There were some earthworms in the chamber where the canisters were stored and once the canisters leaked, they presumably mutated the worms into the snake-like creatures.

The creature that burst out of the Engineer's chest was nicknamed "the Deacon" by the film's crew because its head resembles a deacon's pointed mitre. It was the result of the Engineers' mutagenic black liquid that mutates any living organism it comes into contact with. David infected Charlie Holloway with it, and Charlie later impregnated Elizabeth. This led to Elizabeth having an alien organism inside her womb, which was removed surgically before it killed her. The squid-like organism (nicknamed "the Trilobite") slightly resembled an alien facehugger as seen in the previous Alien films. As it matured, however, it grew to immense size and impregnated an Engineer with the "Deacon" xenomorph. This is not the first xenomorph to have been created. In the room with the large stone Engineer head, we can see a xenomorph on the mural, meaning they must have existed long ago.

No. A minor "crazy credit" appears at the end of the credits in the form of a full screen logo for the fictional Weyland Corporation with the date 11 October 2012. The 101112 site popped up with a Weyland video not previously seen (odd to have a date after the film's release date, but it possibly a plug for the Blu-ray/DVD release). The video has Weyland quoting more Nietzsche just before he walks on stage for the TED Talks video. It links to an interactive Weyland Industries timeline.

Technically yes. As Ridley Scott has stated in interviews, by the third act of the film, you begin to see Alien DNA (literally). After having sexual intercourse, Shaw is unwittingly impregnated with an organism by Holloway after he had been exposed to the black liquid. However, she has the fetus surgically removed from her uterus before it kills her. At first it appears to be similar to an Alien facehugger, though upon closer examination it is revealed to be rather squid-like (the filmmakers refered to this creature as the "trilobite"). At the end of the film, the trilobite has grown to around 9 feet in length/height and attacks the Engineer and sticks an ovipositor down his throat, essentially making the trilobite to be a much larger, earlier version of a facehugger. The very last scene of the film has a "xenomorph" type creature bursting from the Engineer's chest. It is extremely similar to the titular creatures from Alien films apart from a few key differences. The shape of the head looks more like a shark's fin, the creature's body is smoother instead of being skeleton-like, its mouth has rows of tiny, flat teeth (more omnivorous than carnivorous) and the inner "striking" jaw looks and works differently.

Yes, during the film's viral marketing campaign there were a couple of videos (no shorter than 20 seconds and no longer than 4 minutes) released that give some background on a couple of key players in the story. The first is the The Peter Weyland Files: TED Conference, 2023 (2012) video. Next is The Peter Weyland Files: Happy Birthday, David (2012). Third is The Peter Weyland Files: Quiet Eye, Elizabeth Shaw (2012). After the release of the film, an additional video was released, "Thus Spoke Zarathustra", which appears to precede the TED Talks video.

Yes. The Derelict ship is the same design as the ship found in this film. The pilot's seat that looks like a cannon which the dead Space Jockey was found laying in is identical to the pilot seat that the Engineer climbs in to. Lastly, the space suits the Engineers wear look identical to the appearance of the Space Jockey. Dallas comments that "Looks like it's been dead a long time, fossilized. Looks like it's growing out of the chair." While the Engineer's technology hasn't been fully explained, it's possible that their technology and suits are at least partially biomechanical. As we see the Engineer climb in to the pilot's chair, additional parts from the chair, including the helmet come out to cover the Engineer. This could explain why Dallas thought the Jockey was growing out of the chair.