Alien: Romulus: Everything We Know About the New Film in The Franchise
On August 16, Alien: Romulus will be released in US theaters, the seventh feature film in the franchise inaugurated by Ridley Scott’s founder in 1979 (excluding the two Alien vs. Predator, whose events are not considered canon within the saga). A film that Scott produced, entrusting the direction to the Uruguayan Fede Alvarez, one of the most famous names in contemporary horror (the remake of The House, the diptych of Man in the Dark), here for the first time – as director – in collaboration with a studio other than Sony (to be precise, 20th Century Studios, a division of Disney). A big fan of the universe created by Scott and his collaborators in the Seventies, Alvarez wanted to go back to the origins, literally. Here’s what we know about Alien: Romulus.
Alien: Romulus: Everything We Know About the New Film in The Franchise
A completely different story for Alien Romulus, the new chapter of the franchise directed by Fede Alvarez. We chose to focus on a teaser of about a minute and not on a full trailer. It begins with a look into space and then slows tracking shots inside the station, accompanied by horrendous noises and screams. The name of Fede Alvarez appears on the screen, with the title of his most horror works, Man in the Dark, a choice that would like to give an idea of the atmosphere that we will find in Romulus. This is for the first 30 seconds. In the remaining half, however, we move at great pace to show scenes of escape from the face huggers, an image of Cailee Spaeny holding a rifle – to recall our beloved Ripley – and finally a frame of a Xenomorph ready to attack. A series of choices that go in a single direction: to strongly recall the first two chapters of the saga, in particular the first, complete with great prominence given to the name of Ridley Scott in the role of producer.
Among The Top Two
Alien: Romulus, born from an idea that Alvarez had mentioned to Scott during an informal conversation at the time of Alien: Covenant, is a self-contained film set between Alien and Aliens (but there will be references to all the films in the franchise, says the director). It centers on a group of young people who explore an abandoned spaceship, looking for possible objects they could use. But there is a reason why the aircraft was abandoned, and soon the human characters will have to deal with various incarnations of the ravenous xenomorph who for almost fifty years, thanks to the aesthetic genius of the Swiss artist HR Giger, has been a source of nightmares for spectators all over the world. Given Alvarez’s pedigree, and as already suggested by the teaser released this week, there will be no shortage of gory moments: according to the filmmaker, one of these led members of the crew to look away while filming the scene in question. And speaking of that…
All True
Coming from the world of low-cost thrills, and being a lover of the same, Alvarez is used to working with artisanal special effects, and this philosophy remained unchanged for Alien: Romulus, whose use of CGI was limited to shots where it was strictly necessary to add or manipulating something beyond the limits of hand techniques. Therefore, the spaceship is a real set, and for the creatures the director turned to those who worked on the animatronic puppets in previous films, in particular, James Cameron who boasted the contribution of the studio of the never-too-late Stan Winston. An aspect that fascinated him so much that for some scenes Alvarez himself handled some of the monstrous creations of his collaborators.
The New Recruits
For the cast, Alvarez made use of emerging and mostly unknown talents, entrusting the main role to Cailee Spaeny, acclaimed for her performance in Priscilla by Sofia Coppola, and therefore the new heir to the strong female tradition of the franchise (Sigourney Weaver, Noomi Rapace, Katherine Waterston). Even behind the scenes, it was decided to focus on relatively new names, with the soundtrack in the hands of Benjamin Wallfisch, a contemporary of the original film who has made himself noticed in recent years, also in the horror sector, through his collaborations with directors such as Andy Muschietti and David F. Sandberg.
In The Darkness of The Room, Everyone Will Hear Us Screaming
Initially, it was planned that Alien: Romulus, like its colleague Prey regarding the Predator franchise, would go directly to the Hulu platform (and therefore in the Star catalog of Disney+ outside the United States). The decision to release it in theaters came not as a result of test screenings (although both James Cameron and Ridley Scott would have loved it), as happened with other recent titles that the respective studios wanted to distribute via streaming, but already during filming, a sign of great confidence in this new incarnation of one of the flagship brands acquired by Disney in 2019. But also a sign of the times, since after the initial euphoria induced by the pandemic period it quickly emerged that the exploitation in the room is a source of income that should not be overlooked. And so, in August, blood will flow again on the big screen, with the approval of Scott and Cameron, both enthusiastic after seeing a rough cut of the new film.
