Alien: Romulus Director Offers New Character Details

Fede Álvarez offers new insight into the mysterious new spinoff.

By Patrick Cavanaugh

Horror fans know that the upcoming Alien: Romulus will be taking place between the events of Alien and Aliens and that it is billed as a spinoff more than as a direct continuation of anything else seen in the Alien franchise, though director Fede Álvarez has now offered some new insight into the figures who will be tormented by the frightening xenomorph. The series has brought together groups of characters for a variety of reasons in the past, with Álvarez explaining how the human Rain (Cailee Spaeny) and synthetic Andy (David Jonsson) came together and became an unlikely family. Alien: Romulus is set to hit theaters on August 16th.

"When [Rain's] father was dying, he left Andy to be a kind of caretaker," Álvarez shared with Empire Magazine. "But Andy is a bit damaged and he's an older model. So more than a surrogate father, he becomes a younger brother to her. And that was always the heart of the story: this relationship between the two... and how that relationship unfolds once sh-t hits the fan."

In the original four movies, the main narrative connection is that the movies followed Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley, and while Romulus isn't narratively connected to the rest of the franchise, the filmmaker confirmed he made sure to include ways to tonally connect the dots between Alien and Aliens.

"To ask an Alien fan to choose between [Alien and Aliens] is a perverse question," the director joked. "So I thought, 'How do I do both?'" 

He continued, "There's a moment where the characters are walking around areas familiar from the Nostromo ... Then they cross through that building and on the other side: boom! You're in a hallway that looks like Hadley's Hope [from Aliens]."

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), Aileen Wu. Fede Álvarez (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. 

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Alien: Romulus lands in theaters on August 16th.

Are you looking forward to the movie? Contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror! 

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