Is there any sci-fi fan who hasn’t had the age-old debate over whether “Alien” or “Aliens” is better? For the newest addition to the franchise, “Alien: Romulus,” filmmaker Fede Álvarez (“Evil Dead” 2013) had to decide which path to take. Should he go with a more straight-up haunted-house horror movie plot like Ridley Scott’s original film? Or should he pick an action-packed war film like James Cameron brought to the table with the sequel?
Well, Álvarez picked a secret third option by somehow blending the two.
How?!
“To ask an Alien fan to choose between them is a perverse question,” Álvarez told Empire. “So I thought, ‘How do I do both?’” So, basically the director is setting out to make a film that has the slow tension building of the first film, mixed with the nonstop Xenomorph assault of the second. This blend does make sense given that “Romulus,” will be set between the two films in the “Alien” universe’s timeline.
Trying to make an amalgamation of the first two movies is such a focal point for “Romulus,” that you can even see it in the set design. To achieve this look, the production split the Renaissance Station into two sections, the Remus which is a call back to “Alien,” and the more advanced Romulus, as a nod to “Aliens.”
“There’s a moment where the characters are walking around areas familiar from the Nostromo,” Álvarez explains. “Then they cross through that building and on the other side: boom! You’re in a hallway that looks like Hadley’s Hope [from Aliens].”
The Cast of “Romulus”
The film stars Cailee Spaeny (“Priscilla”), David Jonsson (“Agatha Christie’s Murder is Easy”), Archie Renaux (“Shadow and Bone”), Isabela Merced (“The Last of Us”), and Spike Fearn (“Aftersun”). Along with Aileen Wu who is making their feature film debut.
Spaeny will play Rain, with Jonsson portraying her android foster brother Andy. “When her father was dying, he left Andy to be a kind of caretaker,” says Álvarez of the duo’s dynamic. “But Andy is a bit damaged and he’s an older model. So more than a surrogate father, he becomes a younger brother to her. And that was always the heart of the story: this relationship between the two… and how that relationship unfolds once shit hits the fan.”
“Alien: Romulus” will hit theaters on August 16th. You can check out the teaser trailer below:
