Between The Counselor, Steve Jobs, Assassin's Creed, and now Covenant, Fassbender has a pretty poor track record, box office wise, as a lead actor. He also played games with his availability, making sure he was busy on another movie if he didn't like the current draft of Prometheus 2. When you read about the delays, Scott always wanted to go next wit his draft, and Noomi seems out of the loop, but Fassbinder kept saying "it's about finding the right story" and was constantly busy until the direction changed to being an Alien movie where Dave is the lead and creates the xenos. I know I'm reading between the lines, here, but I think Fassbinder deserves some blame, maybe a lot of the blame. He allegedly didn't get along with Rapace, and surprise she was replaced by an actress Fassbinder enjoyed working with on Steve Jobs. I think Fassbinder played games trying to make Covenant into what he wanted.