Appearing to walk back earlier comments, director Fede Alvarez has said he was never going to make an Alien: Romulus 2 – only co-write it. From an outsider’s perspective, it sounds as though something rather odd is happening in the Alien franchise. Following the financial success of last year’s Alien: Romulus, plans were quickly made ... Alien: Romulus 2 | Fede Alvarez now says he never intended to direct the sequel
Appearing to walk back earlier comments, director Fede Alvarez has said he was never going to make an Alien: Romulus 2 – only co-write it.
From an outsider’s perspective, it sounds as though something rather odd is happening in the Alien franchise. Following the financial success of last year’s Alien: Romulus, plans were quickly made for a sequel, with all signs pointing to director and co-writer Fede Alvarez returning to direct. Shooting was to begin this October for a projected release in 2026.
At some point, those plans changed. In early September, Alvarez revealed that while he and regular collaborator Rodo Sagueyez were writing the Alien: Romulus 2 script, he was “gonna pass the torch” to a different director.
Even more recently, Alvarez has suggested that he never intended to direct the sequel in the first place – a slightly surprising claim, given how enthusiastically he’d talked about the project over the past year.
“I don’t think I was ever going to direct,” Alvarez said at an event called HorrorBound Weekend, which took place in Ohio earlier this month. As is the way with the internet, the director’s comments were picked up by a podcast, Epic Film Guys, then filtered out to other websites like Alien Covenant, World of Reel and this one.
Alvarez went on to say that other big-name filmmakers – such as James Cameron and David Fincher – made one Alien franchise entry and moved onto other things. Instead, he’s happy to co-write the script, he added, saying that he did so to ensure that the Romulus sequel continues the story of the first film’s protagonists, Rain and Andy.
“We did want to write it,” Alvarez said. “Honestly it’s because we love the characters we created so we want to make sure no one kills them right at the beginning of the next one. They went and killed Hicks and Newt just like that… We wrote it and made sure they stayed alive, and now we can let someone else make it.”
Read more: Alien: Romulus 2 | The sequel that’s suddenly stalled
Previously, however, Alvarez had said that “I think the sequel is my next movie,” in an interview with Collider, and that “I hope I can shoot it this year.”
Again, plans must have changed between the time he said those words in February and this summer. There have been various rumours and insider gossip about what might have happened: that there may have been creative differences between Alvarez and executive producer Ridley Scott – who inevitably has the final say over all things Alien – and that Alvarez may have been fired.
The timing of Alvarez’s public statements and the emergence of Noah Hawley’s Alien: Earth TV series has also sparked some speculation. Has the success of that show prompted a creative shift? Or does Ridley Scott have plans to make another prequel himself?
At present, there’s little to go on other than insider whispers and Alvarez’s occasional public statement. The Alien: Earth season finale streams on Disney+ from the 23rd September, and there’s already talk of a second series. Alien: Romulus 2, we suspect, may be much further off than initially billed.
