Alien: Romulus’ Fede Alvarez says he’s passing the torch to another director. Rumours of creative differences with Ridley Scott have begun. Well-received last year, Alien: Romulus was a hit for 20th Century Studios – which isn’t bad going for a movie once destined to go straight to Disney+. Since then, director Fede Alvarez has talked ... Alien: Romulus | Fede Alvarez no longer directing the sequel
Alien: Romulus’ Fede Alvarez says he’s passing the torch to another director. Rumours of creative differences with Ridley Scott have begun.
Well-received last year, Alien: Romulus was a hit for 20th Century Studios – which isn’t bad going for a movie once destined to go straight to Disney+. Since then, director Fede Alvarez has talked a number of times about heading up a sequel – one that, he hinted, would take its protagonists to the paradise planet they discussed in Romulus, and which may not be the idyll they dreamed of.
Talking to TooFab last week (the 5th September), however, Alvarez revealed that he’s no longer going to direct the Alien: Romulus sequel, co-written with his regular partner Rodo Sagueyez.
“We just finished the script, actually, for a sequel for Romulus. But I’m gonna pass the torch on this one as director,” he revealed. “I’m going to produce it, with Ridley Scott, we’re gonna produce it together and we’re right now trying to find a new filmmaker to come in.”
Alvarez didn’t give a specific reason why he’s decided to step back from directing the sequel, other than adding, “We love the story and now we just want to find a director that really wants to go for the jugular.”
The following day, however, Hollywood gossip specialist Jeff Sneider started the rumour that Alvarez “got fired.”
Speaking on The Hot Mic podcast, Sneider said, “You’ve been talking about this for the past year. What are you talking about, ‘pass the torch’? I think the torch got passed over him.”
Sneider then floated his theory that Ridley Scott – who produced Alien: Romulus – “bigfooted” Alvarez, and that there may have been creative disagreement over the character David, introduced in Scott’s prequel Prometheus and played by Michael Fassbender.
“I think Fede really wanted Fassbender,” Sneider said, “and I heard Ridley said, ‘No. Because I may want to come back to the series, and if so, I want to be the one who brings him back and uses him.'”
There’s no way of verifying this, of course, so it’s best placed in the rumour category for now. But there are some curious details to the story so far: it was only in June that Alvarez was talking quite openly about his plans for the Alien: Romulus sequel, with the film being in pre-production and filming scheduled to begin this October. 20th Century Studios, it seemed, were so delighted with Romulus' critical and financial performance that it decided to fast-track the follow-up, with Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson set to reprise their roles as Rain and Andy.
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Clearly, something has changed in the months since. One major event in the franchise was the release of Alien: Earth – Noah Hawley’s TV series set in the same universe. That show has, if anything, been more critically acclaimed than Romulus was, so perhaps the reception to it has changed the studio’s plans for the franchise’s future.
Even more recently, Scott himself has talked vaguely about the possibility of returning to the franchise again following 2017’s Alien: Covenant. “Another Alien prequel – yeah, if I get an idea, for sure,” he told the Guardian in an oft-shared quote. Given the number of films he has on his slate – The Dog Stars, which he’s finished shooting, a Battle of Britain film, Gladiator III, his Bee Gees biopic – it’s unclear when or where he’d fit it in.
At present, we can only speculate. But for now, the Alien: Romulus sequel will have to lie in stasis while a new director’s found. More, as always, as we get it.
