The first trailer for franchise relaunch Alien: Romulus promises a return to the roots of the iconic sci-fi horror series.
The film comes from the director of Don’t Breathe and Evil Dead, Fede Álvarez, yet has retained the director of the original, Ridley Scott, as producer and the Aliens director, James Cameron, as unofficial consultant.
Originally intended to go straight to Hulu, in the footsteps of the Predator prequel, Prey, Alien: Romulus is now heading to cinemas this summer with Priscilla’s Cailee Spaeny leading a cast of young actors.
The timeline places it between Alien and Aliens and follows a group of young space colonisers as they go scavenging on a derelict space station. “I wanted to travel back not just to the style of the original movies, but to the genre of the original movies,” Álvarez said to Variety. “I really wanted to go back to the sheer horror of the first film, and to take those elements of thriller that Aliens has, and Alien 3 has as well. We went to crazy extents to keep it pure to the film-making techniques of the first movie.”
After Scott read the script, he called it “completely different than the other movies” and Álvarez told the Hollywood Reporter that after he screened the film for him, without VFX, he called it “fucking great”.
Cameron was also someone who became an important part of the process. “He’s now seen the movie and loved it,” Álvarez said. “It’s also fascinating because [Cameron and Scott’s] notes and comments are completely different … They were all super smart comments, notes and thoughts on the film and the film-making, etc, but both of them have completely different approaches.”
The film also stars Industry’s David Jonsson and Madame Web’s Isabela Merced.
It arrives as the Fargo creator Noah Hawley prepares to make a TV series based in the Alien universe, set three decades before the first movie, also involving Scott.
The Alien franchise has made over $1.6bn at the global box office.
Alien: Romulus will be released on 16 August.