Major Spoiler For Katherine Waterston’s Alien: Covenant Role Revealed

Up until today, all we knew about Katherine Waterston's role in Ridley Scott's Prometheus sequel, which is titled Alien: Covenant, is that she's playing a character named 'Daniels' and is a crew member on Covenant, a colony ship. Last month, 20th Century Fox released an official image of Waterston as Daniels, showing her with short, dark hair and wearing a comfortable, gray tank top. It reminded us of Ellen Ripley's (Sigourney Weaver) appearance from the original 1979 film, Alien. Well, there's a good reason for that.

"Waterston will be playing Ellen Ripley's mother in Alien: Covenant, which is an amazing twist and true to Scott's promise that the post-Prometheus prequels will eventually lead right up to the first Alien movie," sources close to film and actress told The Playlist. "But it should be noted that Waterston isn't the lead of the movie, and it's an ensemble piece like Prometheus."

This helps to provide a clue as to how the Prometheus films will later connect with the original film.

Ridley Scott returns to the universe he created in Alien with Alien: Covenant, the second chapter in a prequel trilogy that began with Prometheus -- and connects directly to Scott's 1979 seminal work of science fiction. Bound for a remote planet on the far side of the galaxy, the crew of the colony ship Covenant discovers what they think is an uncharted paradise, but is actually a dark, dangerous world -- whose sole inhabitant is the "synthetic" David (Michael Fassbender), survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition.

The cast features Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Danny McBride, Demián Bichir, Jussie Smollett, Amy Seimetz, Carmen Ejogo, Callie Hernandez, Billy Crudup, Alexander England, and Benjamin Rigby.

Alien: Covenant is being directed by Ridley Scott, based on a screenplay written by Jack Paglen (Transcendence) and Michael Green (Green Lantern). It'll open in theaters on August the 4th, 2017.