A Chilling New Photo From 'Alien: Covenant'

An earlier photo release from ‘Alien: Covenant’ (Fox)

Ridley Scott wants to hear more people scream in space in 2017, when he delivers Alien: Covenant, his second prequel to his 1979 sci-fi horror classic. And the film — whose production has indefinitely delayed District 9 director Neill Blomkamp’s Sigourney Weaver-led sequel — has now released a new, exceedingly familiar-looking still from the set.

On the official Alien Facebook page, a snapshot of Scott’s in-action video monitor reveals a long, dark spacecraft corridor, at the end of which is ominous light and steam. That imagery directly harkens back to earlier Alien outings, and such connections are made even more direct by the shrouded-in-shadow foreground sight of new lead Katherine Waterston (Inherent Vice) with short hair and a tank top – a look that certainly calls back to the style sported by Weaver in her initial, star-making turns as alien-combatting Ripley.

Katherine Waterston in ‘Alien: Covenant’ (Facebook)

Alien: Covenant will focus on an intergalactic crew’s discovery of a fantastical planet – likely the home world of humanity’s creators, the Engineers, which is where Noomi Rapace’s astronaut Elizabeth and Michael Fassbender’s synthetic David were headed at the end of 2012’s Prometheus. While further plot details are scarce, we do know that Rapace won’t be returning for this saga, but Fassbender will play a prime role, as Waterston and company will find that David is the sole inhabitant of this strange new world.

Alien: Covenant co-stars Danny McBride, Demian Bichir, Jussie Smollett, Amy Seimetz, Carmen Ejogo, Callie Hernandez and Billy Crudup, and docks into theaters on August 4, 2017. You can see the first photo from the film at its Facebook page.