Terrifying as hell. A one-minute teaser for the next Alien has just been revealed. The film, titled Romulus, will be the seventh – ninth including the two Alien vs. Predator – part of the horror saga launched by Ridley Scott in 1979. After James Cameron, David Fincher, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, it is the turn of Fede Alvares to take up the torch. The bar is high for the British director who passes eight years after the fiasco of Alien: Covenant, although directed by the creator of the saga. This new part is scheduled for August 14 and brings together Cailee Spaeny, Isabela Merced, David Jonsson Fray and Archie Renaux.
In 2180, behind closed doors in an abandoned space station, some images of the xenomorph and a group of terrorized young people, all accompanied by distressing music and a perfectly gloomy atmosphere…. The first teaser of Romulus already announces the color: the film will be like the first parts, futuristic and terrifying. But not only. For this new opus, Fede Alvares, to whom we owe Evil Dead (2013) and Don’t Breathe (2016), wants to reconnect with the original story of Alien. Thus, the feature film will be located between the first two parts dating from 1979 and 1986 respectively.
But after the dismal failure of Alien: Covenant, in 2017, Fede Alvares also wanted to pay tribute to the creator of the franchise. ““Romulus” is a love letter to all the other films in the saga, confided the new director during an interview with AlloCiné. This film is what I wanted to see as a fan.” Ridley Scott was also present from the start of filming. “We talked with him, benefited from his wisdom and listened to what he knows about this,” explains Fede Alvares. The best part of making the film for me was being able to sit at a table with Ridley Scott, who is one of the masters of this art in this genre, and talk about cinema with him.
In this new opus, Feve Alvares tried to resume the graphic aspect of the first part. “It’s hard to top the chest explosion that audiences saw in the 1979 film,” he admits. But I think we got a few moments in the film that really stand out in people’s minds in a unique way. The scariest part is always in your mind, in what you think is happening or what you think you saw. There’s a lot of that in our film.” And for now, it’s a successful mission since fans were ecstatic over the film’s trailer, which they find “faithful” to the first opus.
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One of the objectives of the 46-year-old filmmaker was precisely to link the films together, hence the title, Romulus, which refers to siblings, at least to the links that unite the characters, whether “by blood or friendship,” he continues. This is a big novelty. For the first time, the characters are much more developed than in previous installments. “Our film is probably the “Alien” film which has the most characterizations, not in terms of stories but in terms of relationships between the characters which are more significant, continues Fede Alvares. They grew up together and consider each other brothers and sisters. And the film asks the question of what it really means to be someone’s brother or sister.” But the director wanted to reassure fans of the horror saga, assuring that “if what interests you is to see them die, believe me, you will see them die!”
