New Alien: Romulus Photo Offers a Fresh Look at the Frightening Xenomorph

The last two entries into the Alien franchise, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, began expanding the world of the series to explore a number of different types of terror, but the upcoming Alien: Romulus from director Fede Álvarez will take the saga back to its roots, putting a new focus on the monstrous xenomorph. With the film set to hit theaters later this summer, USA Today unveiled a new look a the iconic creature, and while the photo doesn’t give much insight into the plot of the spinoff, the image serves as a reminder of how disturbing the spinoff will be. You can check out the new photo below before Alien: Romulus hits theaters on August 16th.

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. 

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 Álvarez, Elizabeth Cantillon (Charlie’s Angels), Brent O’Connor (Bullet Train), and Tom Moran (Unstoppable) serving as executive producers.  

The franchise has earned a total of eight entries to date, which includes two crossover films with the Predator franchise. While the first four films all centered on Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley, the two prequel films took place in that timeline though didn’t directly connect to the events of Ripley’s journey. Álvarez previously expressed how his new film, which is set between Alien and Aliens, won’t disrupt the franchise’s mythology.

While speaking with Variety earlier this year, Álvarez confirmed his new film takes place “20 years after the first one, and for me, I don’t see it as upsetting the canon. It’s something I take personal pleasure in doing, making sure that it all tracks and is all part of the big Alien franchise story — not only in the story, but also when it comes to how to make it. I talked with Ridley [Scott] as a producer, and had long chats with James Cameron about it at the script level. After the movie was done, I showed it to them.”

He continued, “Everybody’s really important, from the VFX supervisor of Aliens and the guys that make the miniatures, and we hired a lot of them to work on the movie. Otherwise, it’s hard to nail the style and the look and the vibe of a film like I wanted. That was the biggest pleasure of making this movie, to be able to do that whole process.”

Alien: Romulus hits theaters on August 16th.

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