We recently learned that Alien: Romulus director Fede Álvarez is working on the script for a direct sequel to the block-busting sci-fi horror movie, and it sounds like the follow-up might just lay the groundwork for a new Alien vs. Predator film.
Álvarez confirmed that he's currently developing the story during a recent interview with Empire, while promising that the movie will take the classic 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.”
Could they discover an even bigger, smarter and harder to kill alien than the one they narrowly escaped from?
During this week's episode of The Hot Mic, Jeff Sneider said he's heard that the script for the Romulus sequel "includes a Predator." Whether this means one of the extraterrestrial hunters, aka a Yautja, will have a prominent role or simply show up at the end to tease a future crossover is not clear, but this would still be a massively exciting development for fans of these iconic franchises.
Alvarez did address the possibility of helming a new Alien Vs. Predator movie with Prey and Predator: Badlands director Dan Trachtenberg during an interview with Deadline last year.
"Maybe it’s something I have to co-direct with my buddy Dan," Álvarez suggested. "Maybe we should do like Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez did with Dusk Till Dawn. I’ll direct a half, and he’ll direct another half."
What do you make of this rumor? Would you like to see a Predator show up in the Alien: Romulus sequel, or would you prefer if they held off for a while?
"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.