When it comes to the “Alien” franchise the gatekeeper remains the original film’s director Ridley Scott.
Though others like James Cameron, David Fincher and Jean-Pierre Jeunet came along and helmed sequels, Scott took back the franchise with his “Prometheus” and “Alien Covenant” films.
Sadly whilst we’ll never get the closing film truly bridging “Alien: Covenant” with “Alien,” the franchise is coming back soon in two forms – the already shot film “Alien: Romulus” and the currently halted mid-production untitled “Alien” TV series from Noah Hawley.
Filmmaker Fede Alvarez (“Don’t Breathe,” “Evil Dead,” “The Girl in the Spider’s Web”) helms ‘Romulus’ and recently spoke on stage with Guillermo del Toro at the Directors Guild Of America Latino Summit about the film according to AVP Galaxy.
Specifically, he discussed Scott’s reaction to seeing the film. Scott is famously blunt, not holding back his opinion on things he doesn’t like. Of Denis Vlleneuve’s “Blade Runner 2049” for example, he told Vulture: “It was f—ing way too long. F— me. And most of that script’s mine.”
So Alvarez was understandably nervous when he submitted the film for Scott’s viewing:
“I finished the director’s cut a week ago and had to go through the incredibly tense process of obviously sending [it] to Ridley. I wanted him to see it before anybody.
And everyone gave me the heads up that Ridley is really tough. He’s really tough, particularly if it has something to do with his movies. He was really tough on “Blade Runner,” which I thought was a masterpiece, and he had issues with it because it’s really hard for him because it’s his work.
So I was like ‘there’s no way I win this one’. Even if he didn’t ask for it, I was gonna go there and sit at a table and look at him and get it. Even if he was gonna say ‘you destroyed my legacy,’ I wanted to be in front of him and see him in the eye. I didn’t want to get an email where it says Ridley says…. I was like, ‘I wanna see him, if you’ll see me, I want to talk to him right after.’
I drove there. I see his executives, who couldn’t see it with him because he wanted to watch it on his own. Because it was ‘Alien’. It was very important to him. He didn’t want to have anybody in the room. That makes me even more terrified while I’m waiting.
Then he walks into the room and he did say ‘Fede, what can I say? It’s f—ing great’. For me, it was like…ahhh…My family knows it was one of the best moments of my life to have a master like him, whom I admired so much, to even watch a movie I made but particularly something like this…and talk to me for an hour about what he liked about it.”
Cailee Spaeny, Isabela Merced, David Jonsson, Archie Reneaux, Spike Fearn, and Aileen Wu star in “Alien: Romulus” which, like “Prey” last year, was initially supposed to be released on Hulu. 20th Century Studios opted to switch to a theatrical release this past June.
The film will open in cinemas on August 16th 2024.
