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“There should be things in the last 20 minutes of the movie that you never see coming,” teases Alien: Romulus director Fede Alvarez, in an exclusive interview with Den of Geek at SDCC 2024. That’s a very ambitious goal for someone helming the ninth movie in one of the most iconic and revered franchises in sci-fi horror history.
But based on the trailers we’ve seen so far, Alien: Romulus‘ mission is two-fold: not only is it trying to bring something fresh to this heavily-explored universe but it also wants to recapture what made the franchise’s most beloved installments—Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986)—so great in the first place. As far as the latter goes, Alvarez had a plan.
One way to recapture the essence of the original Alien was to go back to the methods of the masters, including Alien director Ridley Scott. Scott famously neglected to tell his cast about the amount of blood that would spurt out of the first chestburster scene in 1979. So when Lambert shrieks and Parker falls back when a monster explodes from the body of their colleague Kane, we’re actually seeing and hearing Veronica Cartwright’s genuine surprise and Yaphet Kotto’s actual confusion about the blood shooting from their co-star John Hurt.
Alvarez had some of his own surprises in mind for the cast of Alien: Romulus.
“I was crawling under the water thing, and Fede was like, ‘Yeah, let’s just dump a bucket of water on her!’” recalls Isabela Merced, who plays Kay in the new movie. “We had already done a bunch of takes with the xenomorph landing over me, but then it was just a bunch of water.” Merced points out that you can see the moment in the trailer, which does indeed feature her looking surprised and scared.
In fact, as the cast recounts stories in our studio, it sounds like throwing surprises at the actors was Alvarez’s go-to move. The film’s cast all agree on one particularly noteworthy moment: “The Cryo Chamber,” shouts Archie Renaux (Tyler), who tosses a playful look at Alvarez. “I remember there were all these facehuggers around, and you wouldn’t tell us when these things are going to get thrown out, so we’re genuinely reacting. So there’s no anticipation. It’s all real, and it’s genuine.”
Of course, the Romulus crew isn’t the first through to go through the Scott/Alvarez approach to getting genuine reactions on an Alien set. Did the new generation have a chance to chat with those who have dealt with Alien surprises in the past? Much to her chagrin, Romulus star Cailee Spaeny has not been able to get into contact with her most famous predecessor, Sigourney Weaver.
“My window’s sort of running out,” Spaeny says. “I hope there’s some way to get in touch with her, that’s such a huge dream. She’s such an inspiration to me, and for so many people, and so many actresses in Hollywood. She really just paved the way, and the choices that she made in the first one really set the tone for me in this film.”
It’s exactly this desire to match the tone of the original that drives Alvarez’s surprises, something that his cast members want as well.
“Fede’s one of those directors that you never know quite what we’re going to do,” said David Jonsson, before adding, “We trust him implicitly, knowing that he knows the genre, he knows the films. He’s just a fan of the Alien franchise, but also an actors director, in my opinion, where we were able to play. And if something wasn’t right, we could go back and do something different.”
That level of trust extends to the audience, who comes to Alien: Romulus also trusting Alvarez to breathe something different into the franchise. And if the cast in the crew doesn’t see the surprises coming, surely the audience won’t either.
Alien: Romulus leaps into theaters on Aug. 16. You can read much more about the movie in our exclusive cover story here.
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