As much as Star Wars: The Force Awakens could have had A-listers to lead the film, director J.J. Abrams chose a couple of unknowns. However, some of those bigger names managed to get in a few cameos (such as James Bond himself, Daniel Craig), while others never got their chance to be a part of a galaxy far far away. We recently learned that Eddie Redmayne tested for Kylo Ren, a role that eventually went to Adam Driver. However, the Oscar-winning actor wasn’t the only big name who was up for a role in the 2015 Star Wars sequel.

While helping promote his new film Assassin’s Creed, Michael Fassbender said he was considered for a role in The Force Awakens.

Today is Ridley Scott‘s 79th birthday. So happy birthday, Mr. Scott. The man who brought us Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator, and The Martian, not to mention the many other films and TV shows he is a producer on. He is currently hard at work putting the finishing touches on Alien: Covenant.

So to help celebrate this momentous occasion a new behind-the-scenes photo from the set of Scott’s upcoming film has been released. If you think a simple image being released on the Internet isn’t enough, well then you should be happy to know that the Directors Guild of America is giving the Academy Award-winning director a Lifetime Achievement Award for his work in film. Check out the image below.

Another unexpected treat on this holiday is a brand new poster for director Ridley Scott‘s next Alien movie, titled Alien: Covenant. It’s about as simple as they come, and it’s a safe bet that no fan of the franchise is going to have even the slightest problem with that.

Even more exciting? The poster has a release date on it, and it is not the October 6, 2017 date we previously knew about, nor is it the even earlier August 4, 2017 date it got pushed up to. Unlike most movies, which often get delayed, the new Alien is moving closer once again with a new May 19, 2017 release date.

Click on over to the other side to check out the new Alien: Covenant poster.

20th Century Fox has released a second trailer for Assassin’s Creed, the movie adaptation of the hit video game series of the same name. The first trailer was released back in May.

This new trailer is longer than the first trailer and dives more into the time when the character Callum Lynch (Michael Fassbender) is getting acquainted with the mysterious corporation Abstergo and their virtual reality machine the Animus, mixed with some glimpses of his time inside the Animus itself where he experiences the life of his ancestor, the assassin Aguilar, over 500 years in the past.

You can read an official plot synopsis for the movie and watch the new trailer below.

X-Men: Apocalypse
Director: Bryan Singer
Screenwriter: Simon Kinberg
Cast: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Oscar Isaac, Nicholas Hoult, Rose Byrne, Tye Sheridan, Sophie Turner, Olivia Munn, Lucas Till, Evan Peters, Hugh Jackman
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Rated PG-13 | 147 Minutes
Release Date: May 27, 2016

“Mutation: it is the key to our evolution. It has enabled us to evolve from a single-celled organism into the dominant species on the planet. This process is slow, and normally taking thousands and thousands of years. But every few hundred millennia, evolution leaps forward.”

If there’s one thing director Bryan Singer achieves with X-Men: Apocalypse, it’s channeling the excess and indulgence of the 1980s. The ninth installment in the X-Men series has too much of everything, including thinly written characters, stale end-of-the-world scenarios, and overblown CGI annihilation.