New Alien Movie Takes Place Between Original and Aliens

Much of the upcoming Alien movie from Fede Álvarez has been shrouded in secrecy, but star of the project Cailee Spaeny recently confirmed the timeline in which the adventure unfolds, with the new installment set between the original 1979 Alien and the 1986 Aliens. Fans shouldn’t expect much crossover between the events of the upcoming film and those previous entries, as it is expected to be a standalone adventure that unfolds parallel to the beloved sci-fi stories. To ensure the authenticity of the experience, the actor confirmed how creatives involved in Aliens came on board the project to replicate the look of that universe from around that point in time. The new Alien is set to hit theaters on August 16, 2024.

“It’s supposed to slot in between the first movie and the second movie,” Spaeny revealed to Variety. “They brought the same team from Aliens, the James Cameron film. The same people who built those xenomorphs actually came on and built ours. So getting to see the original design with the original people who have been working on these films for 45-plus years and has been so much of their life has been really incredible.”

Also starring in the new film are Isabela Merced, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Spike Fearn, and Aileen Wu. The movie was previously teased as following “a group of young people on a distant world, who find themselves in a confrontation with the most terrifying life form in the universe.”

Between Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, and Alien: Resurrection, the first four films in the franchise followed a linear path. Original director Ridley Scott returned to the franchise with 2011’s Prometheus, which served as a prequel to the whole franchise. He followed this with Alien: Covenant, which served as a sequel to Prometheus that still managed to take place before Alien. Scott had previously expressed that he aimed to develop another sequel that connected these prequels more directly to Alien, but those plans seemingly dissolved.

Despite stepping into a series that Scott was still invested in, Álvarez claims that Scott had a promising response to the new film.

“He walks into the room and he did say, ‘Fede, what can I say? It’s f-cking great,’” Álvarez revealed during a DGA presentation earlier this year about Scott’s reaction. “For me it was like … My family knows it was one of the best moments of my life to have a master like him, who 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. One of the best compliments he said was, ‘The dialogue is great. Are you the writer?’ Yes!” 

The new Alien is set to hit theaters on August 16, 2024.

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