Fox president heartbroken that the Internet leaked Prometheus footage already

By Sean O'Neal | December 1, 2011 | 4:58pm

Aux Features Film

Were you among the few who recently managed to see some very shakily filmed footage from Ridley Scott’s Prometheus before the studio began scrubbing it from the Internet? If so, you have broken Fox president Tom Rothman’s heart, sir: Addressing the online leak, Rothman called it “heartbreakingly unfair” that "early half-baked, half-assed test" footage of Scott’s next sci-fi opus could be offered up like that, context-free, and in such low quality that it can’t possibly do justice to Scott’s meticulous composition. Informed that the Internet also sometimes allows unscrupulous people to write anonymous comments offering preemptive judgment about movies they haven’t seen yet, or make dismissive, barely relevant jokes that clearly have no factual basis, Rothman then turned pale and excused himself to go and tremble into his lace.

But first, MTV managed to ask him, as with everyone involved with the project, whether Prometheus is an Alien prequel, because come on. And not surprisingly, Rothman toed the party line, repeating Scott’s assertion that it was not, that it bears only metaphorical “strands of Alien DNA” in maybe five percent of the film, and that it’s only a “prequel” in the most narrowly defined, absolutely literal sense. So there you have it: TOM ROTHMAN SAYS PROMETHEUS IS LITERALLY AN ALIEN PREQUEL.