Fede Álvarez’s Alien: Romulus is the ninth installment of the Alien movies – one of cinema’s best sci-fi movie series. Of course, it also counts as one of the best horror movie franchises of all time with how creepy and gory things tend to get when Xenomorphs are around.
Any time a new chapter to a long-running iconic franchise such as this upcoming horror movie is announced, it tends to raise a great deal of questions, but with how complicated the Alien movies timeline has gotten in recent years and with an FX original spin-off series from Noah Hawley in the works, this is a special case. Allow us to attempt a cure for any potential confusion surrounding this upcoming sci-fi movie with our following guide to Alien: Romulus.
What Is The Alien: Romulus Release Date?
Fans can expect to see Alien: Romulus when it hits theaters on August 16, 2024. We have already seen a great deal of exciting horror and sci-fi releases on our upcoming 2024 movies schedule, but few have garnered the excitement that this sequel has.
The Alien: Romulus Trailer Will Make You Scream Loud Enough For Everyone To Hear
What makes the original Alien from 1979 one of the best horror movies of all time is its perfect blend of multiple elements of fear – namely claustrophobia, paranoia, and one scary-ass creature let loose on an isolated spacecraft. It appears that this new installment is going back to basics by reincorporating those details, but adding a few of its own frightening differentiators that might help it stand out among the rest. Check out the final full-length Alien: Romulus trailer below to see what we mean:
The two-minute Alien: Romulus teaser hinted at some big scares, with insane explosions and hordes of leaping facehuggers, and the first full-length trailer gave us even more to be afraid of, with imagery of a brutal and transfixing variety unlike anything the franchise has shown us yet. The final trailer is essentially an extension of that clip, offering longer, heart-wrenching footage of its most frightening moments and deeper insight into how and why our protagonists come face-to-face with the Xenomorph. Speaking of, we still only see brief glimpses of the titular creature, but it appears that 20th Century Studios saved that for the unveiling of Cinemark’s Alien: Romulus popcorn bucket.
Cailee Spaeny Leads The Alien: Romulus The Cast
We would love to see legendary Scream Queen Sigourney Weaver reprise her Academy Award-nominated role as Ellen Ripley someday. However, the actors from the Alien: Romulus cast give us plenty of reasons to be excited.
Cailee Spaeny (Rain)
In the lead is Cailee Spaeny, who made her feature film debut fighting otherworldly beings in Pacific Rim: Uprising before later joining HBO’s Mare of Easttown cast and playing the title role in Sofia Coppola’s biopic, Priscilla. In 2024, she starred in another acclaimed A24 movie called Civil War, which reunited her with Devs creator Alex Garland.
Isabela Merced
The Alien: Romulus cast also includes Isabela Merced, who also has experience contending with both aliens and robots (specifically alien robots) from starring in Transformers: The Last Knight with her Instant Family co-star, Mark Wahlberg. The actor and musician’s other most notable previous credits include the title role in Dora and the Lost City of Gold and Anya Corazon in the Madame Web cast, and she will play Hawkgirl in an upcoming superhero movie out in 2025: James Gunn’s Superman.
David Jonsson (Andy)
Playing an android named Andy is David Jonsson, who making his feature-length horror debut with Alien: Romulus. The British actor made his feature film debut in one of the best movies on Hulu, Rye Lane, following roles on TV shows like Deep State and Industry.
Archie Renaux
The last time Archie Renaux starred in a coming-of-age space movie was in 2021 with Voyagers and, that same year, he was brought into Netflix’s Shadow and Bone cast as Malyen Oretsev. The fellow British actor also had a role in the Morbius cast, Apple TV+’s The Greatest Beer Run Ever, and back-to-back rom-coms, The Other Zoey and Upgraded.
Spike Fearn
The Alien: Romulus cast member with the least experience in the horror genre is Spike Fearn, unless you want to count his brief appearance as a Gotham City vandal in 2022’s The Batman, which is not without its unsettling moments. He is even better known for the Academy Award-nominated drama, Aftersun, and the British teen drama series, Tell Me Everything.
Aileen Wu
Making her feature film debut in Alien: Romulus is Aileen Wu. Her only other acting credits so far are a couple of short films: 2022’s Closing Doors and Skin from the following year.
What Alien: Romulus Is About
In 2023, 20th Century Studios issued a press release teasing what to expect from the upcoming film’s story. According to the logline, Alien: Romulus follows “a group of young people on a distant world” who come face to face with the universe’s “most terrifying life form,” which is, of course, one of the all-time greatest horror movie villains: the Xenomorph.
The final trailer, however, clues us in to why our young protagonists are in their predicament. They board the titular space station to “steal highly regulated equipment,” hoping it will be their last chance for a better life, only to regret their decision soon after. While there is still nothing to suggest that this new film is directly tied to the 1979 original and James Cameron’s 1986 sequel, Aliens — widely considered the best Alien movie to this day — Cailee Spaeny’s comments to Variety claim that Alien: Romulus is set between those classics.
How To Watch Alien: Romulus
As previously established, we still have until later this summer when Alien: Romulus hits theaters, but it will likely be available to stream with a Hulu subscription after the fact. The movie was initially developed as an exclusive for the platform but, somebody must have changed their mind somewhere down the line. We wonder if it had anything to do with the recent success of two great horror movies on Hulu about extraterrestrials that many believe deserved theatrical releases: Prey and No One Will Save You.
Alien: Romulus Is Rated R
The official MPA rating for Alien: Romulus is R, for bloody, violent content and language. The news should come as no surprise to any fan of the franchise – which only has one PG-13 installment, being 2004’s Alien vs. Predator – and to anyone familiar with the work of the new film’s co-writer and director.
Fede Álvarez Co-Writes And Directs
The filmmaker helming Alien: Romulus is Fede Álvarez, from a screenplay he penned with his longtime professional partner, Rodo Sayagues. Álvarez made his mainstream breakthrough more than a decade earlier by breathing new life into another beloved horror franchise, the Evil Dead series, with his brutal 2013 reboot. He went on to direct an original thriller called Don’t Breathe in 2016, brought Lisbeth Salander back to U.S. cinema with The Girl in the Spider’s Web two years later, and attempted another sequel to a horror classic as the producer of Netflix’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Signed on as a producer of Álvarez’s Alien movie is the director of the original sci-fi movie classic: Ridley Scott, who has already seen an early cut of the new sci-fi thriller and was driven to use an expletive to describe just how great it was, in his opinion. The two filmmakers sat down for a joint interview with Fandango, during which they discussed their creative processes and experiences with the franchise. Álvarez revealed that Scott gave him valuable advice about never relying on the creature to build tension, before teasing that the Xenomorph is not unveiled in Romulus until later in the story.
With a filmmaker as talented as Álvarez bringing the franchise back to the big screen and Emmy-winner Noah Hawley in charge of the aforementioned TV spin-off, now seems like a great time to be an Alien fan.
