Following the trailer for Venom: The Last Dance, which is technically a movie about an alien that latches onto humans to survive, Disney/20th Century Studios (Fox, you are missed) released a new trailer for Alien: Romulus.
This is the latest film in the Alien franchise, it comes from filmmaker Fede Alvarez and is set during the six-decade gap between the events of 1979’s Alien and 1986’s Aliens. In an interview earlier this year, Alvarez said he was inspired by the kids living in the space colony depicted in Aliens, and wondered what those kids would be like as adults. And so Alien: Romulus is born.
This is a cool ass trailer, but Alien movies always make cool trailers. The imagery of the franchise is literally iconic, and Alien boasts that distinctive siren sound effect, which was first used in the trailer for Alien back in the 1970s, one of the great film trailers of all time. Romulus uses that siren sound effect to great effect, and though I didn’t love Prometheus or Alien: Covenant, this is a creative universe with a lot of potential. Besides original director Ridley Scott, James Cameron and David Fincher have both made good films in the franchise. Cameron, arguably, made a film as good as Scott’s.
The trailer for Romulus isn’t giving much away beyond yet another group of space people in over their heads with xenomorphs and face-huggers. What else is new?! People are always underestimating the giant sentient space bugs for how bad they’ll f-ck you up! But the trailer does show plenty of Cailee Spaeny, who leads the film, and Isabela Merced, who seems to be set up for a truly terrible death (no one ever just dies peacefully in their bed in this universe).
For Spaeny, this comes on the heels of Civil War and Priscilla, capping off a busy breakout year—though SOME OF US have been watching her since 2018’s Bad Times at the El Royale. Alien: Romulus is due in August, and there’s a good chance the summer will need a good sci-fi/horror flick to juice the last of the season’s box office, which could make her a 2024 box office book end, with Civil War in the spring and this coming at the end of the summer movie season. And next year, she’s part of the Knives Out 3 fantasy cast. How long before “Cailee Spaeny: movie star” happens?
