ALIEN: ROMULUS Director Explains He Wants to "Go Into Uncharted Waters" with the Franchise
Fede Alvarez, the director of the hit film Alien: Romulus, has big plans for the iconic franchise. In a recent interview with Empire, Alvarez expressed his excitement about breaking new ground and introducing audiences to something fresh within the Alien universe.
When asked about his next film in the franchise, Alvarez said: “Rodo [Sayagues, co-writer] and I are working on that right now. We’re excited about where it can go.
“We’ve almost checked all of the boxes of things that I want to see [in Romulus], and brought back a lot of the things I hadn’t seen in a while. Wherever we go now, we can go into uncharted waters.
“I think it’ll be so exciting to go with characters you know from this movie, to a place in the Alien franchise that we’ve never been before, and to discover things that you’ve never seen before.”
Alvarez’s comments seem to suggest that he’s looking to move away from familiar themes and settings of the franchise, and it looking to push boundaries while staying true to its legacy.
During a previous interview, Alvarez talked about the sequel and he said: “I think with sequels, it’s always about finding the right story. Me and Rodo [Sayagues], my co-writer, we have some ideas, but it’s not until we find something that we go “Ok, that is a movie worth making” that we really embark on it.
“So that’s the process we are in right now, trying to find a story that is worthy of everyone’s time and is worthy of the title. Otherwise, you never want to fall into the mistake of making [a sequel] just because the first one is a big hit … [making a sequel] just because you can make it, that’s always a recipe for disaster.”
As far as what they story will entail, Alvarez said that the two main characters and survivors of the first film, will be a part of that next story.
“The two survivors, Rain and Andy, played by Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson, were real highlights of the film. And so I always think of it like, 'Wow, where do people want to see them go next?'
“We know there's going to be aliens. We know there's going to be great horror set pieces. But I fell in love with both of them and I want to see what their story is."
He continued to tease where the story could go: “So, once we finished, we started thinking, ‘What do you think happens when or if they get to Yvaga? Is it going to be great? Or is it a terrible place?’
“We tend to believe it’s probably a terrible place that they think is great and fantasize about, so we naturally started thinking about where it goes and what’s going to happen.
“And then, a few minutes in, we go, ‘Oh, that sounds like a sequel.’ But we really try to think about it more in terms of story and if it needs another chapter and whether people want to know what happens next.”
I love that Alvarez is looking to do something new and different with the franchise, and it will be interesting and cool to see what that ends up being.