Cate Blanchett Is An Alien In New Image From Wild Sci-Fi Movie Alpha Gang

Published Sep 5, 2026, 10:30 AM EDT

Matthew Rudoy is one of ScreenRant's Movie & TV News Editors. He covers the latest in movie & TV news, with a focus on major franchises like Star Wars, The Boys, and Game of Thrones, and also writes some features and reviews. He wrote lists for ScreenRant from 2017-2022, became a news writer in 2023, a senior staff writer in 2024, and an editor in 2025. 

Cate Blanchett trades The Lord of the Rings' fantasy for science-fiction in Alpha Gang.

The new science-fiction comedy film features Blanchett as the leader of aliens disguised as a biker gang in 1950s Eastern Europe. The cast also includes Chris Pine, Dave Bautista, Lily-Rose Depp, Léa Seydoux, Doona Bae, Kelvin Harrison Jr., and Riley Keough. It is directed by David and Nathan Zellner, whose last movie, Sasquatch Sunset, had no dialogue and Keough and Jesse Eisenberg, respectively, playing a female and male sasquatch.

Ahead of Alpha Gang's premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, The Hollywood Reporter released the first image of Blanchett's character, who is wearing an eye patch and a rhinestone leather jacket due to the biker gang disguise that the aliens are using. She can also be seen with red hair and a scowling expression, and Blanchett describes the character as an "alien Chekhovian." Check out the image below:

While Alpha Gang's aliens are on a mission to invade Earth, Nathan explained to THR that “I thought it would be funny if it’s an invasion movie all from their perspective, and they have really no idea how to accomplish that goal.” The aliens are instead are consumed with questions about what it means to be human, from what it means to listen to music to the experience of falling in love. The two brothers directing the movie further expanded on what audiences can expect as well.

Nathan Zellner: For the characters themselves, this is a pretty high stakes situation — it’s very serious — and where the observation and the humor comes from is from the audience looking at it from the outside. We wanted these characters to feel grounded, even though with the setting and the scenario and the stuff that they’re going through, there’s a ridiculous aspect to it.

David Zellner: We wanted to approach it with absolute sincerity, never with a wink — as absurd as the situation is, and as stylized as it is.

Alpha Gang was previously slated to begin filming in 2020 with an entirely different cast that featured Jon Hamm, Steven Yeun, Andrea Riseborough, Nicholas Hoult, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Mackenzie Davis, Sofia Boutella, and Kid Cudi. Scheduling issues meant that some of these actors had to exit the project, though, and as a result, the Zellners no longer felt they had the "right combination" of stars.

In reaction to the new image of Blanchett's character, Kid Cudi posted on X: "I was cast in this movie, didnt hear anything about it for years, now I see this hahah hollywood."

Blanchett eventually met with the Zellners after being enthusiastic about their prior films and went on to be an executive producer and star for the project. She and fellow executive producer Coco Francini worked to cast the right ensemble, which the Academy-Award-winning actor describes as "a real jigsaw puzzle, but everybody sort of jumped at it." A first-look image of the cast was released in July.

Despite her central involvement as an executive producer and actor, Blanchett does not appear in the movie as frequently as many of her co-stars. This was only due to scheduling, though, as she would have been willing to take on any part for the film: “I would’ve played any of the roles, but then the film happened when it needed to happen and it was a scheduling issue. Yet when I stepped on set, I’d seen all of the footage. I realized how wide we could go. I understood what the boundaries were.”

Alpha Gang is a less mainstream project for Blanchett ahead of 2027's live-action How to Train Your Dragon 2, in which she reprises the role of Hiccup's mother, Valka, that she first played in the franchise's animated films.