“There’s no theatre business at that time.”
Alien: Romulus is unleashed in cinemas this weekend, but it wasn’t always intended to be that way.
When it was originally announced in March 2022, it was going to be a Hulu exclusive movie and go straight to streaming, much like Predator prequel Prey. Unlike Prey, however, Alien: Romulus switched to a cinema release when filming started.
Director and co-writer Fede Alvarez was always fairly confident that his Alien movie would be seen on the big screen though.
“The only reason why it started there, I think, is because we started working on this in 2021. There’s no theatre business at that time. It was just like a year or so after COVID and there’s no hope at that point for theatres,” he told Digital Spy.
“A lot of the things that the studio was doing, and a lot everybody was doing at the time, seemed to be heading to streaming. Even Dune came out and streamed. So it was the only reason.
“The studio were confident that if we could pivot, we were going to pivot. And very soon after we, I think at the time we had a script, everybody knew that it was not going to be on streaming. I’m glad that it’s not something people will only watch on their phones.”
After the strong early reactions to Alien: Romulus, Disney are probably also glad that it’s not going to be a streaming exclusive.
Ahead of its release, Alvarez also teased to Digital Spy that Alien: Romulus has a “f**ked-up” ending.
“It gets very brutal. That’s the beauty of it. If you’ve seen my other movies, they have a lot of endings and I always feel like it’s ending and it keeps going. We really crank it up towards the end, towards the last few minutes,” he explained.
The filmmaker has also clarified the movie’s position in the Alien timeline, as well as revealing the hidden meaning in its title.
Alien: Romulus is released in cinemas on August 16.