If you were geeked out at the prospect of Nick Frost and Simon Pegg making a sci-fi comedy called Paul with director Greg Mottola, hold on to your hat. Sigourney "Ellen Ripley" Weaver has signed on to join the cast, in what may be the best news since we heard that real astronauts were actually watching Star Trek in space.
There's no word at all yet on what character Weaver will play, but we're far too happy that she's in it to care. She is, of course, next up in James Cameron's Avatar, so sci-fi fans are going to be in for quite a bit of Alien flashbacking in the near future.
It was also announced today, slightly less excitingly, that Weaver will appear in comedy You Again with Kristen Bell. Bell plays a girl who goes off the deep end when she learns that her old high-school nemesis is marrying her brother (Bell's brother, that is; not the brother of the nemesis herself. That'd be a whole other movie), and Weaver will play the nemesis' very rich aunt.
So that's good news, right? We like Weaver doing comedy: from Working Girl to Baby Mama, she's got just the right timing for it, and the last time she did sci-fi comedy was Galaxy Quest so that's got to be a good omen for Paul.