Alien: Romulus director didn’t want to make the same mistake as Terminator

In an exclusive chat with Dexerto, Alien: Romulus director Fede Alvarez shared a lot of love for the Terminator franchise – but he didn’t want to make the same mistake as Dark Fate. 

After all, it’s been seven years since Alien: Covenant, and a whopping 45 years since Ridley Scott’s original sci-fi movie masterpiece. 

Rather than making Romulus a continuation of the Alien timeline, horror helmer Alvarez and his longtime collaborator Rodo Sayagues are venturing back to the good stuff, with the new movie taking place between Ridley’s Alien and James Cameron’s Aliens. 

When asked about the timeline ahead of the movie’s release, the filmmaker told Dexerto that the “most important thing” was that he “didn’t want it to be a continuation.”

This is different from Terminator: Dark Fate, the latest and final chapter in the action movie franchise, which dropped in 2019 but continued the events of the first (1984) and second (1991) entries.

“I didn’t want it to be chapter seven, right? I felt like, at this point, you need the new audience to come in. And if you tell them it’s part seven, or when things are too connected to the previous movies, you are left with, I don’t know, Terminator: Dark Fate,” he explained.

“I enjoyed it, but I could tell that a young audience would be completely confused about all these people that everybody gets so excited about. 

“When nostalgia takes over, and suddenly there’s a 70-year-old character that shows up and the audience is like, ‘Why is this person supposed to be cool?’ And you’ve got to go, ‘Oh, well, you should remember 1992…’ 

“Young audiences don’t care unless it means something to them.” 

Alvarez went on to say that he wanted to be careful not to “lean into something” that only half of the audience would appreciate. 

But that’s not to say there’s nothing for the die-hard fans, with the filmmaker promising lots of authenticity to the franchise and Alien Easter eggs “all over” the place. 

“If you’re a fan, you will discover them and you’ll enjoy the hell out of seeing those elements. But if you’re not, it still wouldn’t rob you from fully enjoying the movie,” he continued.  

Obviously, Alvarez couldn’t give away any spoilers, but he promised that the decision to set Alien: Romulus a few years after the first Alien will “make sense.”  

“And also, this helped a lot stylistically, because I wanted the movie to feel of that era,” he added, teasing that it will incorporate elements of Alien while the technology of Aliens will start to show throughout the movie too.

Alien: Romulus bursts its way into theaters on August 16, 2024. Until then, check out how to get the movie’s popcorn bucket, other horror movies to get excited about, and the films heading to streaming this month.