Alien: Romulus Rating Confirmed

Alien: Romulus continues a 45-year franchise trend with an R rating.

By Nicole Drum

The eagerly anticipated next installment of the Alien franchise, Alien: Romulus, is set to open in theaters on August 16th and now, the film's rating has been confirmed. According to FilmRatings.com, the MPA has rated Alien: Romulus R for "bloody violent content and language." The R rating for the film continues the streak for the 45-year-old Alien franchise as all of the films in the franchise have been all been rated R, with most of the films earning that rating for some combination of violence and language.

Alien: Romulus is the seventh film in the Alien franchise and will take place between the events of the first two films, Alien and Aliens. The film is directed by Fede Álvarez who co-wrote the script with Rodo Sayagues. Ridley Scott, director of Alien, serves as a producer on the film.

A Scene From Aliens Inspired the Story for Romulus

Alien: Romulus is being billed as more of a spinoff rather than a direct continuation of the Alien franchise and will see a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe. Álvarez has previously opened up about how a deleted scene from James Cameron's Aliens featuring young colonists inspired Romulus' story.

"My first instinct, just to try something different that hasn't been seen before, was to approach it form the angle of characters who are not professionals or scientists; they're not even adults," he said. "I liked this concept of putting people in the front seat of the story who are closer to what the audience is — not that the audience is young, more that the audience is completely virgin to the realities of space. When the characters are professionals, they know more than you do. But when they're still in their early 20s, they don't know how to operate the f-cking airlock."

He continued, "All their parents probably worked on the same ship when they were kids, and that's how they got to know each other … There's a lot of history between them because they're the only family they have. They truly act more like surrogate siblings; some of them even lived under the same roof. A lot of the big themes of the movie are about siblinghood and what does that mean? The Romulus of it all, and the bigger plot with Weyland-Yutani, is actually connected to that as well."

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Alien: Romulus 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. 

Alien: Romulus hits theaters on August 16th.

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