Ridley Scott, who directed the first Alien film in 1979 and then 2012’s Prometheus and 2017’s Alien: Covenant, passed the baton to Fede Alvarez for Alien: Romulus, this time with some caveats.
At the “Romulus” premiere in Los Angeles on Monday, Scott, who is a producer on the project, told The Hollywood Reporter that when Alvarez first showed him the film, “I was so relieved to know that this had the potential to be a big movie, that I said, ‘You don’t have to take notes, but I’ll tell you what I think.'”
The director explained that instead of saying it out loud to Alvarez, he took notes, “and Alvarez would sneakily read them, kick the wall, punch the door, and then come back and say, ‘That was a good note.'” Scott also suggested shortening the film, saying, “Directors have a tendency to make movies too long. It was long, and I didn’t want to lose the dynamic. In this kind of movie, it’s all about the dynamic, and Alvarez had a lot going on. He didn’t need that much.”
When asked why he chose Alvarez to direct the series, Scott cited Alvarez’s previous work (such as “Evil Dead” and “Don’t Breathe”), emphasizing, “You can’t hand this to a newbie, because the studio will eat you up. When you’re directing your first movie, everyone’s telling you what to do. It’s a joke to have too many cooks in the kitchen. You have to tell them to stand back.”
The film stars Cailee Spaeny, David Johnson, Archie Renaud, Isabella Merced, Spike Fern and Eileen Wu and follows a story that follows a group of young space immigrants who come face to face with the universe’s most terrifying lifeforms.
Alvarez said of taking on the series, “For me, ‘Alien’ has always been the scariest movie, so to be able to enter that world and bring it to a new generation and bring it to life in a way that’s never been done before and in a very realistic, documentary-like way, has really been the stuff of my nightmares.”
He also explained the decision to use live-action effects over visual effects, saying, “Obviously it would have been easier to shoot an empty space and add CGI creatures later, but we didn’t do that. We went all out to create creatures. We combined the philosophy of old cinema with modern technology, using modern technology to create something that people don’t see on screens every day.”
“Alien: Romulus” hits theaters on Friday.
Tiffany Taylor contributed to this report.
