Alien: Romulus director Fede Álvarez clarifies when his upcoming movie takes place in the franchise’s timeline. Following the lackluster response to Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant in 2017, Álvarez’s new entry in the saga is set to explore what happens after a group of young people from faraway in the galaxy encounter a xenomorph. The film stars Cailee Spaeny and Isabela Merced, among others, with no characters from past installments expected to return.
As the Alien: Romulus release date inches closer, Álvarez clarifies in an interview with THR that the film takes place between 1979’s Alien and 1986’s Aliens. The director also touches on just how connected his take on the franchise will be to these first two installments. Read his comment below when asked whether his film is “unconnected” to the first two movies:
That’s not correct, but it does take place between the two movies. The way we crafted it is if you haven’t seen any of them, I’m jealous because you’ll have an incredible experience. You’ll have all these worlds of Alien coming at you, and you’ve never experienced any of this. You don’t know how the creature is born, and you don’t know any of these things. That’s fantastic. You’ll have a blast.
Now, if you’ve seen the others, then it’s a completely different experience in a way, because you’ll see and you’ll find those connections with the other movies. And if you’re a fan, you’ll be that person who annoys your friends in the theater, by telling them that you know what this is from and where that gun is from and what the characters are talking about.
So it is crafted in that way, and hopefully it works that way for everybody, but it is connected to all of them. I love all of those movies. I didn’t want to omit or ignore any of them when it comes to connections at a story level, character level, technology level and creature level. There’s always connections from Alien to Alien: Covenant.
More to come…
