Director: Ridley Scott
Cast: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Logan Marshall-Green
Certificate: 15
Trailer

From the opening credits, gliding over the surface of an Earth-like planet, you can tell that Prometheus is a very different kind of Alien.

Ridley Scott’s return to the genre that he mastered – twice – has been trumpeted as the prequel to the series. The one that explains the beginnings of H.R. Giger’s beasties. But when we see our first E.T., it's clear that the director's thinking bigger than that: he doesn’t want to explain where the Space Jockey on LV-246 came from. He wants to explain where EVERYONE came from.

The full Prometheus trailer has parked its shiny bum on the internet - and as far as teasers go, it's pretty damn teasing.

We still don't know that much about Ridley Scott's prequel-but-not-a-prequel-but-still-connected-to-the-Alien-franchise-but-not-really mystery film. The official synopsis reads something like: "A team of explorers find a clue to the origins of man on Earth, leading them on a journey to the darkest corners of the universe... There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race."

We seem to be looking at what happened in the lead up to the events on LV-426 in the first Alien film. But Ridley's been pretty adamant that this isn't a directly linking prequel.

Yet everything about this screams Alien. The pods littering the ground around Michael Fassbender's character. The familiar outline of the infamous space jockey's ship. The way the titles appear in the same gradual procession of vertical and horizontal bars. 

So what's it all about? Like all the best teasers, Prometheus' trailer doesn't answer any of our questions - it just asks a load more. When Ridley Scott does answer them in 2012, it should be something very special. As long as you forget that this is the director who also made Robin Hood and A Good Year.

Read on for the full Prometheus trailer. Then get very excited.

As if The Wire, Thor, and Luther weren't enough to prove his talents, Idris Elba has gone and done the impossible: replaced Morgan Freeman. The American Gangster actor will now play Dr Alex Cross in the detective's next cinema outing.

Adapted from James Patterson's latest book, Cross, the thriller sees Cross looking at retirement from the FBI, only to come across a serial killer who may have murdered his wife. It's a typical trilogy-closer plot, but Freeman, who played Cross in Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider, was knocked off the project by the producers, who are looking for some younger blood.

In another departure from Freeman's two outings, the film will be financed independently, away from Paramount. David Twohy, who is currently touching up Kerry Williamson's script, will direct the movie. Which is quite reassuring - despite the Riddick slip-ups, A Perfect Getaway reminded the world that Twohy is a dab hand when it comes to thrillers. And that Elba guy is pretty darn decent too.