Fede Alvarez's Alien: Romulus hit theaters this week and is already looking to be a box office success, racking up a global opening weekend of $110 million of an $80 million budget – and the writer-director is already thinking of what comes next.
Talking with The Hollywood Reporter earlier this week, the Evil Dead and Don't Breathe director teased that ideas are in the pipeline for an Alien: Romulus sequel, which would – if it comes to fruition – be the eighth instalment in the legendary sci-fi horror franchise.
If you haven't seen Alien: Romulus yet, spoilers will follow – so go see it before you keep reading!
Starring Cailee Spaeny (Civil War, Priscilla), David Jonsson (Murder is Easy), Archie Renaux (Shadow and Bone), Isabela Merced (The Last of Us), Spike Fearn (Aftersun) and newcomer Aileen Wu, Alien: Romulus is set between Ridley Scott's 1979 Alien and James Cameron's 1986 Aliens:
While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe.
The end of Alien: Romulus saw Spaeny's Rain Carradine survive her battle with the Xenomorphs (just!) and jet off to the planet Yvaga, with her Weyland-Yutani Android brother Andy (Jonsson) in tow.
When asked by THR what the future holds for Rain and Andy, Alvarez confirmed that he and co-writer Rodo Sayagues could “pitch something tomorrow” for a potential Romulus sequel:
Yes, I definitely can. We tend to do that naturally, not even thinking about sequels. For us, movies have not become franchises, tentpoles and sequels. This is a language that I’ve only learned in the last ten years of my life working here. For me, it’s always been about story. So, once we finished, we started thinking, “What do you think happens when or if they get to your 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.”
However, Alvarez was also quick to point out that he's in no particular rush to get a sequel out:
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. So we’ll wait to see what people think and if people ask for it. My philosophy is that you should never make [a sequel] in two years. You’ve got to get away. You’ve got to get the audience to really want it. If you think about Alien and Aliens, there’s seven years between them. But we definitely have ideas about where it should go.
So it sounds promisingly positive that the Alien: Romulus adventure will continue. Whether Ridley Scott will return as producer remains to be seen, but given that he's called Romulus “f***ing great”, we can imagine he'll be there with bells on.
Hopefully, this sequel will give the people what they want – an Alien vs. Predator face-off between Alvarez and Prey‘s Dan Trachtenberg. Whatever the case, we'll be seated day one.
