Alien: Romulus was a significant success at the box office while also proving to be a big hit with critics, so it wasn't exactly a huge surprise when 20th Century Studios boss Steve Asbell confirmed that early plans are in pace for a sequel last year.
Though director Fede Álvarez still hasn't officially signed on to return, it sounds like it's close to being a done deal. During a new interview with Empire, the filmmaker confirmed that he is in the process of working on the sequel's script, and promises that the movie will take the classic sci-fi horror franchise "into uncharted waters."
“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.”
Alvarez also reiterated that the current plan is to follow the survivors of the previous film, Cailee Spaeny’s Rain Carradine and her android brother Andy (David Jonsson), who we saw entering cryo-sleep for their journey to Yvaga III in the closing moments of Romulus.
“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.”
In a previous interview, Álvarez explained why he would be hesitant to move forward with a sequel until they've come up with a story worth telling.
"Well, I mean, we definitely want to do it," the Don't Breathe director told Gizmodo last year. "The studio wants to do it. I want to do it. 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."
What would you like to see from an Alien: Romulus sequel? Let us know in the comments section.
"Not a perfect organism, but despite an overreliance on retreading over old ground, Alien: Romulus does mark a thrilling return to form, and is surely destined to be ranked as the third-best Alien movie," we said in our review of Alien: Romulus.
"The sci-fi/horror-thriller takes the phenomenally successful Alien franchise back to its roots: 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 film stars Cailee Spaeny (Priscilla), David Jonsson (Agatha Christie’s Murder is Easy), Archie Renaux (Shadow and Bone), Isabela Merced (The Last of Us), Spike Fearn (Aftersun), and Aileen Wu. Fede Alvarez (Evil Dead, Don’t Breathe) directs from a screenplay he wrote with frequent collaborator Rodo Sayagues (Don’t Breathe 2) based on characters created by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett.
Alien: Romulus is produced by Ridley Scott (Napoleon), who directed the original Alien and produced and directed the series’ entries Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, Michael Pruss (Boston Strangler), and Walter Hill (Alien), with Fede Alvarez, Elizabeth Cantillon (Charlie’s Angels), Brent O’Connor (Bullet Train), and Tom Moran (Unstoppable) serving as executive producers.