Alien Romulus: new pictures and more on the heroes

Director Fede Alvarez‘s new addition to the xenomorph canon is titled Alien: Romulus, and the film – which was originally designed to debut on Hulu – is set to receive a theatrical release on August 16, 2024, which bodes well for its quality. With its release just a few months away, Entertainment Weekly released some all-new pics from the movie and gave us some much-needed insight into our new protagonists. Much has been made about how the film is a throwback to Ridley Scott’s original 1979 classic, in that it centers around a group of blue-collar heroes, but according to Fede Alvarez, his new characters are even less qualified to deal with a Xenomorph than the doomed crew of the Nostromo. After all, the young cast is largely composed of people who aren’t even really adults!

“I liked this concept of putting people in the front seat of the story who are closer to what the audience is — not that the audience is young, more that the audience is completely virgin to the realities of space. When the characters are professionals, they know more than you do. But when they’re still in their early 20s, they don’t know how to operate the f—ing airlock.” 

Here are the two new pics from EW:

The article also reveals that Alvarez was a stickler for detail, especially regarding where the movie fell in the timeline. As it’s meant to take place in the fifty-seven years between Alien and Aliens, all of the technology is meant to look like it’s one step between the two films, such as the new pulse rifle star Cailee Spaeny is wielding in the photo above. Alvarez also had people who worked on Stan Winston’s team in Aliens on set at all times to handle the new xenomorph, which he says is closely patterned on H.R. Giger’s original creation.

During an interview with Total Film, the director said the film will bridge the gap between Alien and Aliens in the way the story plays out: “The environments, and the pace of it as well – it’s more similar to Alien for quite a bit. And then gradually – you won’t even know – you feel like it’s more Aliens. It’s a natural progression, and it happens effortlessly.“

What else do we know about Alien: Romulus?

Here’s the official logline: The sci-fi/horror-thriller takes the phenomenally successful “Alien” franchise back to its roots: While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe.

The film is set to star Cailee Spaeny, who’s currently riding high off the success of Priscilla, and will next be seen in Alex Garland’s Civil War, David Jonsson (Industry), Archie Renaux (Shadow and Bone), Spike Fearn (The Batman), Aileen Wu (Away from Home), and Isabela Merced (Rosaline). Recent test screening reports suggested Spaeny would be the Ripley-esque lead while Jonsson will be playing her Android brother. This same source suggests the scavenger characters run into alien trouble while checking out an abandoned Weyland-Yutani research station called Romulus. Meanwhile, the film is said to be very violent, with Facehuggers now having spiked barbs on their fingers, making this element even more horrifying than it was before.

THE OTHER IDEAS

There were several directions the Alien franchise could have gone after the release of 2017’s Alien: Covenant. Although that film didn’t go over well with fans or critics, it did okay at the box office ($240 million worldwide) and Alien director Ridley Scott wanted to make a direct sequel. A chance to wrap up the Alien prequel trilogy he had begun with Prometheus and continued with Alien: Covenant. So that could have happened. Alternatively, the studio could have chosen to revive the Alien 5 project Neill Blomkamp had been developing, which would have brought Sigourney Weaver back as franchise heroine Ripley and given Michael Biehn’s Hicks character from Aliens a different fate than the one we had seen in Alien 3. Blomkamp’s ideas had a lot of fan support (and support from Weaver and Biehn), but it was put on ice because Scott wanted the focus to be on his prequel trilogy. Which ran into a dead end anyway. Another filmmaker who wanted to make an Alien sequel that would have brought Weaver back as Ripley was Walter Hill, who has been a producer on every Alien movie (and got writing credits on Aliens and Alien 3). Hill wrote a 50-page Alien 5 treatment with fellow franchise producer David Giler, who has since passed away, but somehow it didn’t gain any traction. So by getting his Alien movie into production, Alvarez has beaten competition from the likes of Ridley Scott, Neill Blomkamp, and Walter Hill.

THE PITCH STUCK WITH RIDLEY SCOTT

We may not know exactly what Alvarez’s story is, but we do know the pitch made an impact on Ridley Scott, who is producing the movie that could be called Alien: Romulus. Apparently Alvarez told Scott his idea for how to approach a new Alien movie years ago and it was stuck with him. In 2021, Scott called Alvarez and asked him if he was still willing to make that Alien movie. Obviously he was. 20th Century Studios president Steve Asbell had said that they decided to move forward with the project “purely off the strength of Fede’s pitch”, as it’s “just a really good story with a bunch of characters you haven’t seen before.”

NO CONNECTION TO OTHER ALIEN FILMS

Sources say that the script Alvarez has written with his frequent collaborator Rodo Sayagues doesn’t have any connection to the previous Alien movies – except, of course, for the presence of the Xenomorph. So we shouldn’t expect to see any direct tie-ins with the Scott prequels, the adventures of Ripley, or the Predator crossovers. That said, Alvarez has confirmed that the film is firmly set within the universe we’re familiar with from the other movies. His story isn’t meant to ignore or overwrite any of the other installments.

SET BETWEEN ALIEN AND ALIENS

Despite the lack of connection to other films in the franchise, we know that the story is set between the events of the original Alien and Aliens. Cailee Spaeny told Variety the film is supposed to “slot in between” those two movies, but of course she couldn’t go into detail about how or why it fits in there.

THEATRICAL RELEASE

Unlike last year’s new Predator movie Prey, the new Alien movie is going to be released theatrically, with the Mouse House giving the film an August 16, 2024 date. This is similar to what the studio did with Barbarian, which grossed $45 million on a $4.5 million budget, and their recent The Boogeyman, which has already raked in $25 million and counting. Many think Prey would have been a blockbuster had it gotten a theatrical release, as people still prefer to see their scary movies in a dark theater. As anyone who’s ever watched an Alien film theatrically can tell you, that’s always the best way.

RATING

Despite the young cast, Alien: Romulus seems bound for an R-rating. Recently, while promoting Madame Web, star Isabela Merced teased a scene so disgusting everyone watching had to turn away. So what could the moment be? Without giving it away, the rumor is that it has to do with the classic xenomorph chest-burster coming out of… somewhere else on the body. That’s as far as we’re going folks.

RIDLEY SCOTT’S REVIEW

According to Alvarez, Scott has already seen the completed version of Alien: Romulus, and praised it, calling it “f**king great.” Alvarez has confirmed that he received notes from both Scott and Aliens director James Cameron while putting together his own Alien movie.

FOOTAGE SCREENED AT CINEMACON

JoBlo was lucky enough to attend CinemaCon recently, and in the Disney panel, they were given an extended look at one of the film’s big setpieces, which involved the young cast encountering a lab full of facehuggers (which have been grown) and having to fight them off. Naturally, one of them gets infected (we won’t tell you who), and you actually get an x-ray shot of a xenomorph baby trying to break through the ribcage. The chest-bursting scene is shot very much in the vein of Ridley Scott’s original Alien, meaning no xenomorph in a Christ pose, such as in Alien: Covenant. This is old school, grimy, and seems to have been done practically.

TV SERIES

While Alien: Romulus may be destined for theaters, we’ll still be getting some xenomorph content on Hulu, with Noah Hawley’s (Fargo) Alien TV series in production. That show is set on Earth, with FX CEO John Landgraf teasing that the series takes place about seventy years from now, and will not feature any characters from the movies. However, the infamous Weyland-Yutani corporation will still be involved. Currently, the show has no release date and likely will only premiere after the new Alien movie comes out.

Are you looking forward to watching a new Alien movie that leans into pure horror territory as Fede Alvarez sets the Xenomorph lose on a group of young scavengers? Share your thoughts on this project by leaving a comment below.