Alien Director Fede Alvarez Reveals Major Influences on New Sequel

Filmmaker Fede Alvarez is developing  a new installment in the Alien franchise, and with the WGA strike now concluded, he has taken to social media to tease it a little. Sharing a photo of his bookshelf, Alvarez showed fans a glimpse at the Alien “bibliography” he’s working with, which includes reference books and companions to existing movies, as well as an omnibus of old Alien comics stories. Alvarez’s Alien film, planned for release in 2024, reportedly filmed between March and July (they wrapped production before the SAG-AFTRA strike began), and stars Isabela Merced, Aileen Wu, Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Reneaux, and Spike Fearn. Produced by Ridley Scott and Michael Pruss, Alvarez’s Alien is reportedly a stand-alone installment with no story ties to the existing films.

The books shared include: The Art of Alien: Isolation; Aliens: The Set Photography; Giger’s Alien, The Art of Ron Cobb; The Making of Alien; Alien Vault; Alien: The Blueprints; Aliens: The Original Years vol. 1 (a comics anthology from Marvel); Alien Covenant: David’s Drawings; and Aliens: Colonial Marines Technical Manual. 

In the caption, the filmmaker quipped, “Some of my bibliography when developing my Alien film. Did I missed anything?”

You can see the makeshift library here:

The Alien movies are interesting because they represent not just a beloved horror and science fiction franchise, but one that has frequently struggled to nail its tone and identity, leading to numerous aborted projects over the years.

Alvarez’s Alien movie is set for a theatrical release next August. The road to that release date also took a surprising path, as the movie was originally being developed as a Hulu-exclusive. It’s likely that the success of Prey (and the perception that Disney had left money on the table by relegating it to streaming-only) influenced that decision. Prey actually took the stop spot on the US home entertaniment disc sales chart last week, with its Blu-ray release managing to edge out bigger, more expensive movies do to the film’s strong word of mouth.

No specific details about the film’s plot have been revealed, yet it 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.”

The new Alien currently has a release date of August 16, 2024.