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Ahead of the August 16 release of Alien: Romulus, filmmaker Fede Álvarez caught up with Deadline at Comic-Con to tease what fans can expect from his installment of the revered sci-fi franchise, delving into his first meeting with Ridley Scott‘s Scott Free, going for a younger cast, Hollywood’s current move back toward originals, and more.
Álvarez called his film “a pretty intense ride” — “45 years of great science fiction horror ideas, combined in two hours, plus more of the ones that I bring myself.”
His hope for the project, he said, was “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.” If you look back to Scott’s 1979 original Alien, he noted, the film was something that “terrified” everybody.
“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,” he said. “That’s what made it was, and that’s what made it grow and made it a massive hit. It was truly something people hadn’t seen before, and it was a pure horror movie.”
Álvarez’s mission for himself was not even so much to bring “a fresh perspective,” but simply to take the franchise “back to those horror roots, making sure that you deliver at that level.” He also said there’s “a lot of things” in the new film “that are a continuation that hopefully will be a surprise when you watch it in theaters.”
First meeting with Scott Free after helming horror pic Don’t Breathe, as the company was readying Alien: Covenant, Álvarez came in as no stranger to high-profile franchises, having previously helmed both The Girl in the Spider’s Web and a 2013 reboot of Evil Dead, and if there was ever another franchise he wanted badly to tackle, it was Alien. He didn’t come to Romulus by way of open assignment, but in “a more romantic, less corporate way,” laying out what he’d like to see, should he ever get a chance to put his stamp on the franchise.
His vision called for “a standalone story,” nodding to canon in ways diehard Alien fans would appreciate, while also servicing those who’d perhaps never seen a single Alien movie before. He would embrace practical effects as much as possible, and while he never thought about “targeting demos,” he did envision a story with “younger” characters.
“There was a particular relationship in the movie, which has always been the big idea of our movie, which is a relationship between Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson’s characters,” he said, “and that’s kind of stayed there.”
While Noah Hawley is currently at work on Alien: Earth, a new Alien series for FX on Hulu, Álvarez said there was never any discussion of tying his film into the upcoming show.
“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,” he said. “I don’t know all the details of the show, but I can’t wait to watch it. Noah Hawley is a genius.”
In conversation with Deadline, Álvarez also discussed a tidal shift in Hollywood back toward original fare, even as IP-based projects continue to dominate the landscape.
“I think Hollywood is entering a [place], for good, that is going back to something that got lost this last decade that I’ve been making movies, which is the desire to find new movies, as well — unbranded, non-IP things that you can really go into,” he said.
After Alien: Romulus, he shared, he’ll likely look to make “a pure original…if I can find the time.”
Written by Álvarez and Rodo Sayagues, Romulus takes place between the events of Alien and James Cameron’s beloved 1986 follow-up Aliens. The 20th Century Studios pic follows a group of young space colonizers who, while scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe.
The film, marking the seventh installment in the Alien franchise, was teased just yesterday at Comic-Con’s Hall H by Álvarez and cast, who previewed an abundance of new footage. During the panel, the filmmaker said he called the pic Romulus “because it’s a story of siblinghood. 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 also said he wanted to cast up with “fresh faces,” and that as you’d expect, “there’s a lot of death in this movie,” along with no shortage of “psychosexual f***ed up-ness.”
The sci-fi horror pic is produced by Scott Free Productions and Brandywine Productions. Others in the cast include Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn, and Aileen Wu.
This year’s edition of Comic-Con runs through tomorrow, July 28.
