Alien: Romulus, the latest installment in the Alien franchise, won’t be released until August 16, 2024, but it’s been the focus of excitement for quite a while. It’s been great to see even its own director, Fede Álvarez, gushing over his film and sharing his love for the Alien franchise recently, which he elaborated on at a recent San Diego Comic-Con panel for the film. It was a panel that vehemently supported the idea that this Alien film is an unabashed horror movie. At the panel, Alvarez said that his film will take the franchise “back to those horror roots” and called the film “45 years of great science fiction horror ideas, combined in two hours, plus more of the ones that I bring myself.”
Now, if you’re a horror fan and that doesn’t get you excited for the new sequel to Alien, then what Álvarez followed with probably will:
“For me, when you sit down in the theater, the logo shows up, the lights go down, I feel that this is it.
This is the one that is going to change my life. And it’s kind of crazy because most movies are sh*t
. Five minutes in, you go, ‘This is not going to change your life.’ But for the first five seconds, you do feel that way because it did happen to you. And we all keep looking for that moment.”
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As reported by Deadline, Álvarez hopes “to take the franchise back to its true form, in a way, to its original form — to be really honest about what this truly is and what the first movie was. Half of the critics didn’t like it; the other half saw merit in it, and everybody agreed it was the most horrific, terrifying experience they had in theaters… [Alien] was truly something people hadn’t seen before, and it was a pure horror movie.”
There’s a lot of things that are a continuation that hopefully will be a surprise when you watch it in theaters.
Watch the Trailer for Alien: Romulus Below:
Alien: Romulus at SDCC: Practical Effects and Siblinghood
Alien: Romulus
Alien: Romulus 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.
- Release Date
- August 16, 2024
The cast of Alien: Romulus and its director took to Hall H at SDCC to speak about the film. It was a pleasant surprise when all the guests who were fortunate enough to attend the event were able to see some unseen footage, but they also received a facehugger mask as a souvenir. Nevertheless, there were more surprises from Álvarez himself and some surprise guests who showed up on the screens to ask some questions about the film.
Original Alien director Ridley Scott and Guillermo del Toro had their virtual presence on the panel, and they each asked their own questions. Álvarez expanded on the “siblinghood” aspect of the film:
“One of the things I wanted to explore not seen in the original movies are the real human connections among all the characters. This is the first time you have really close people that really love each other, so when sh*t like this happens, it makes it much more dramatic –
being someone’s sibling, would you die for your brother or sister, or leave them behind?
”
Álvarez spoke about what a “fascinating challenge it was” to both create a new horror film while honoring the franchise. He believed the only way to do it was to hire those who worked on the original design. Honoring H.R. Giger was also crucial, so he went to Shane Mahan, who was the creature designer on Aliens, and commissioned him to do some work on Romulus.
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Also at the SDCC panel? Facehuggers and chestbursters that invaded Hall H and attacked some people in a gory display of awesomeness. Check it out below:
See Facehuggers & Chestbursters Invade the Alien: Romulus Panel
Alien: Romulus and its Timeline
One peculiar aspect about Alien: Romulus that Álvarez also confirmed during the event is that the film takes place between Alien and Aliens, the first two films in the franchise directed by Ridley Scott and James Cameron, respectively. In the Deadline piece, Álvarez says that the film has no relation to Noah Hawley’s TV series:
“They were doing the show already when we started writing, and there’s such different timelines that there was no way to connect them, even if you wanted. This is such a standalone story that happened so much later than their story, as far as I know.”
In the panel, he was pretty clear in saying that viewers don’t have to watch any other films in the franchise to understand Romulus. It’s a standalone story completely, and it bears no relation to the others besides the obvious presence of the creatures with acidic blood that like to harvest in human chests.
Alien: Romulus
will be released exclusively in theaters on August 16, 2024.