Since Alien and Aliens were set on a planetoid known as LV-426, April 26th (4/26) is considered to be Alien Day. Director Fede Alvarez (Evil Dead 2013, Don’t Breathe) is currently in production on a new installment in the Alien franchise, and he celebrated Alien Day by sharing a picture from the set on social media. In this image we see a clapperboard and a Facehugger on a set that looks… pretty much how you would expect a sci-fi movie set to look.
This new Alien movie is coming to us from Momentum and 20th Century Studios, with Ridley Scott producing through his Scott Free banner. It’s being made for release through the Hulu streaming service, much like the Predator franchise addition Prey that was released last year (and turned out to be one of the more well-received entries in that series).
Alvarez is directing the film from a screenplay he was written with his frequent collaborator Rodo Sayagues. When the project was announced near the start of 2022, it was said that Alvarez pitched this idea for a new Alien movie to Ridley Scott years ago. Whatever the idea was, it stuck with Scott. So in late 2021, he called Alvarez and asked if he still wanted to make an Alien movie. Clearly, the answer was yes. 20th Century Studios division president Steve Asbell told The Hollywood Reporter that they picked up the project “purely off the strength of Fede’s pitch. It was just a really good story with a bunch of characters you haven’t seen before.“
Asbell added that, since the movie is being made for Hulu instead of a theatrical release, “It’s not a film that has to be all things to all people with those gargantuan budgets. They get to be authentically what they are. And this is closer to its genre roots.“
It has been said that the story Alvarez and Sayagues crafted for this movie is not connected to the other films in the Alien franchise. It will show us what happens when “a group of young people on a distant world find themselves in a confrontation with the most terrifying life form in the universe.”
The cast consists of Cailee Spaeny (Mare of Easttown), David Jonsson (Industry), Archie Renaux (Shadow and Bone), Spike Fearn (The Batman), Aileen Wu (Away from Home), and Isabela Merced (Rosaline).
Are you looking forward to Fede Alvarez’s Alien movie? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.