Almost two years after Alien: Romulus course-corrected the franchise, the sequel still doesn’t appear to be any closer to finding a director. Given that we have all these young, talented horror directors emerging, you might think that 20th Century Studios would find it relatively easy to find someone to make an Alien sequel. But after ... Alien: Romulus 2 still appears to be trapped in limbo
Almost two years after Alien: Romulus course-corrected the franchise, the sequel still doesn’t appear to be any closer to finding a director.
Given that we have all these young, talented horror directors emerging, you might think that 20th Century Studios would find it relatively easy to find someone to make an Alien sequel. But after Alien: Romulus was widely regarded to have breathed a bit more life into a decades-old franchise in 2024, plans for a follow-up appear to have stalled.
For months, it looked as though Romulus director Fede Alvarez might return. Then he abruptly left in 2025, saying something about it being time to pass over the torch. Which was odd, given the previously enthusiastic noises he’d been making about script ideas and so forth.
In his place, reports suggested, came Michael Sarnoski, the talented director of Pig and the surprisingly thoughtful horror sequel, A Quite Place: Day One. Now there are new stories circulating – namely from The InSneider, via World of Reel – that Sarnoski is also offsky (industry term).
The problem, according to the insider gossip, is that Ridley Scott, acting as executive producer, is throwing various creative spanners into the works. Alvarez had wanted to introduce Michael Fassbender’s renegade android David to Romulus 2's story – continuing the first film’s nods to Scott’s prequels. But Scott, according to reports, nixed the idea because he wanted to keep David back for a potential sequel to 2017’s Alien: Covenant.
Scott has exercised his clout over the Alien franchise before; Neill Blomkamp was set to direct a sequel to Aliens – one that would have ignored the events of Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection, bringing back Sigourney Weaver and Michael Fassbender – but the project was axed. Scott pointed out to 20th Century Fox (as it was known at the time) that it might seem a bit odd to audiences if there was an Alien 5 going on while he was making Alien: Covenant – and so Blomkamp was out.
“They wanted to do Alien, er, Awakening – Neill Blomkamp … I said fine,” Scott told The Independent. “I was going to be the producer. If I could have, I would have. Except I do question – why have both out there? It seems like shooting your big toe off – it doesn’t make sense. But they didn’t go forward with it, Fox, so I just kind of kept out of it.”
The rumour is that Scott now has designs on making some sort of Alien prequel or sequel himself, which is why the past couple of attempts to follow up Alien: Romulus haven’t gained any traction. Admittedly, there’s a lot of whispers here, but one thing is certainly true: 20th Century Studios was initially bullish about making a sequel following Alien: Romulus's $300m box office success. But two years on, there’s no obvious sign of a director or script, let alone a due date for the finished sequel.
We’ll bring you more as we hear it.
