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Fede Álvarez Talks 'Alien: Romulus' Plus Special Footage Preview

By Elliot Lines June 24, 2024

Alien, one of household names in the Science Fiction movie genre. Over the years there has been a steady flow of appearances from the iconic Xenomorphs and face-huggers, stemming all the way back to 1979 when the original was released. Plenty of famous directors have tried their hand at the franchise including; Ridley Scott, James Cameron, David Fincher, to name a few.


With the upcoming release of Alien: Romulus we got the chance to sit in a room with director of the latest instalment, Fede Álvarez (Evil Dead, Don't Breathe), while he discussed his latest movie and showed us a sneak peak at what's to come.


Alien: Romulus Fede Álvarez

Said sneak peak consisted of around 15 minutes of footage, over multiple scenes within the film. Álvarez stated that he didn't want to give too much away and cut these clips in a way that wouldn't spoil from the experience of seeing the film for the first time. However, if this is just touching the surface of what is to come, then fans old and new will be in for a treat come the final product.


From the footage seen, Alien: Romulus feels like it's going back to the roots of the franchise. There was a dark eeriness to the atmosphere throughout the scenes, with clear inspiration coming from those two original films, whether that come from interactions with the Xenomorphs and Face-huggers or the style of environment these characters find themselves in. One scene will terrify the ages with a swarm of face-huggers divulging upon the characters in question.


Alien: Romulus Fede Álvarez

After the footage, Fede Álvarez sat down and answered some questions.


When asked when he knew he wanted to be part of the franchise he spoke about being a fan, and it being something he always wanted to do.


"Maybe it was right after Don't Breathe that when I finished that someone asked me what would you do if you could do anything, I said Alien no doubt."


"Just as a fan, I was like guys if you do something, please. What would you like to see they asked me just as a fan, and I said I don't know maybe go in this direction and have the vibe of this film"


Álvarez spoke about joining a franchise that has directors such as Scott and Cameron involved, but how he took the pressure off himself to make the movie feel authentic.


"Part of the job in a way is to make sure that it feels authentic that you feel that when you watch it that it looks like an Alien movie"


"You have all of this pool of ideas, all of these great ideas they've had through all the years through all of these movies that I get to take some of them and kind of mix them un a new way and compress them in 2 hours."


Alien: Romulus Fede Álvarez

And when first speaking to Scott directly, it was a terrifying ordeal after he got told to not reveal the story to him by the studio.


"So I go into it and kind of give him the vibe of the whole thing, it's a little bit of this and little bit of that then Ridley at the end went, but you don't have a story. I haven't heard a story. And I was like f***ing hell."



Álvarez discussed how the scenes in the movie we're done practically as much as possible and the importance of that to him when making this feel authentic.


"I wish I could show the audience what I'm seeing (On set) and that's what I do and we film it and bring it to you. That's the experience, instead of the opposite will be like there's nothing there on the day and someone else with a computer somewhere in the world will create the shot."


"This has been an enormous task for us, and everybody to really push everybody to understand in that particularly with Alien you need to believe what you're looking at is real, otherwise the feature doesn't work."



Alien: Romulus releases in cinemas August 16

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