I hope you’re ready to do a lot more screaming in space. The trailer for the next film in the Alien franchise is here, and everything old is new again, because this movie takes place 20 years after Alien—so, yes, in between the first two films.
Writer-director Fede Álvarez (The Girl in the Spider’s Web) told Variety, “I don’t see it as upsetting the canon. It’s something I take personal pleasure in doing, making sure that it all tracks and is all part of the big ‘Alien’ franchise story—not only in the story, but also when it comes to how to make it.”
All we get for a synopsis, so far, is a single sentence: “While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe.” Those colonizers include Cailee Spaeny (Civil War), David Jonsson (Industry), Archie Renaux (Shadow and Bone), Isabela Merced (Madame Web), Spike Fearn (The Batman), and Aileen Wu.
This teaser is full of familiar Alien sounds and imagery—ship hallways, blood, screaming, facehuggers, the general horror of space plus things that want to kill you—but doesn’t offer anything new, at least not yet. It feels designed to simply remind us this movie exists, rather than to give us any specifics about why we ought to be excited about it.
Alien: Romulus arrives August 16th.
