Director Fede Álvarez has stated several times that Alien: Romulus is a film that borrows heavily from Alien and Aliens, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t possibly bring in its own concepts.
In a recent verbal exchange with Total Film (via SFFGazette. com), the filmmaker explained how nature documentaries were taken into account when he directed the puppeteers tasked with bringing the Xenomorphs to life and, more specifically, the Chestbursters.
“It’s almost like a nature documentary,” Álvarez tells the site. “While we were watching it on set, we were joking, [like] ‘The creature is slowly coming out. It’s looking for the mother’s scent. . . ‘The creature isn’t hunting to scare. ‘
“The creature seeks to get the [frick] out of this cocoon, it turns out to be a person. It’s almost like it’s more realistic in a way, but without betraying all the beautiful things about the original drawings. “
They also spoke with Cailee Spaeny, the main star of Alien: Romulus, and found out how she approached the resurgence where Sigourney Weaver’s iconic Ripley left off in the role of Rain Carradine.
“I heard [Weaver’s] functionality over and over again for months. I’m hopeful that something will leak,” the actress said. “But I was never intimidated. This role is not written for a woman, so there is genuine freedom. And because Sigourney injected herself completely into it, it allows any other woman who enters it that honesty of never feeling as strange as the weight or tension of betting on a female protagonist.
“In a shot like that, you have to lean in,” Spaeny said of channeling his inner Ripley for the proto-Pulse Rifle scene seen in the film’s trailers. “You just say, ‘Okay. Get those leaf blowers ready!'”I’m going to reach that goal as slowly as I can,” Spaeny adds with a smile. “I don’t feel so good, but it looks good!”
Like Hulu’s Predator reboot, Prey, it’s hard to escape the feeling that Alien: Romulus is going to be something special. Of course, it probably wouldn’t take much to beat Alien vs. Predator and even Ridley Scott’s questionable prequels (which were very light on the Xenomorph action).
This sci-fi horror mystery returns the hit Alien franchise to its roots: while searching the depths of a deserted space station, an organization of young local colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe. .
Alien: Romulus is scheduled to hit theaters on August 16.