Original director Ridley Scott passed on the franchise’s directorship to Fede Álvarez for ‘Alien: Romulus.’ Álvarez discussed working on the project in a recent chat with The Hollywood Reporter at the Monday premiere.
“‘Alien’ has always been the scariest movie ever for me,” he said. “So to be able to go into that world and bring it to a new generation, and bring it to life in a way it’s never been brought to life before and in such a realistic and almost documentary way, it really was the things that made all my nightmares.”
The director also shared why he used practical effects instead of visual ones, “Obviously it’s easier to just shoot an empty space and get some CG creature later on; we didn’t do that. We went all the way to create creatures — we did technology of today with the philosophy of the old movies, but with technology of today to create something that people don’t see onscreen every day.”
Álvarez collaborated with the team behind the Xenomorphs in James Cameron’s ‘Aliens’ and got spaceships built on set. “I have this obsession with no green screens, so we built every creature and set,” the director explained to THR in March. “Everything had to be built so we were really living and breathing in these spaces.”
“But I’m not an anti-CG guy… I come from a background where I know how to build the effects myself. I still do VFX shots in my movies to this day. I’ll cut and do VFX shots on my computer, sometimes. So, it’s just whatever is best for the shot, and when it comes to face-to-face encounters and moments with creatures, nothing beats the real thing.”
‘Romulus’ will follow a group of young space colonizers coming across a xenomorph. Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn, and Aileen Wu will lead the cast.
The film will hit the US theaters on August 16, a day after its UK premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
