Alien: Romulus Director Teases How Sequel Will Head to “Uncharted” Territory for the Franchise

Alien: Romulus has been an absolute lightning rod for the ongoing Alien franchise. Director Fede Alvarez took things back to Ridley Scott’s horror roots with Romulus, resulting in more than $350 million at the global box office and heaps of praise from viewers. It feels like a sequel to Romulus is inevitable at this point, but the Alien franchise has a proud tradition of reinvention with its sequels, exploring new territory with each installment. With the inevitable follow-up to Romulus, Alvarez is hoping to follow suit.

During a recent interview with Empire, Alvarez said that he and co-writer Rodo Sayagues are currently trying to crack the code on an Alien: Romulus sequel. They have the challenge of wanting to incorporate elements and characters from Romulus that have more gas in the tank, while also figuring out how to navigate new territory.

“Rodo [Sayagues] and I are working on that right now,” he told Empire. “We’re excited about where it can go. We’ve almost checked all of the boxes of things that I want to see [in Romulus], and brought back a lot of the things I hadn’t seen in a while. Wherever we go now, we can go into uncharted waters.”

“I think it’ll be so exciting to go with characters you know from this movie, to a place in the Alien franchise that we’ve never been before, and to discover things that you’ve never seen before,” he added.

[RELATED: A VHS Collector Reviews Disney’s Alien: Romulus VHS Release]

Alvarez went on to say that, just because they are working through a story for an Alien: Romulus sequel, there’s no guarantee this movie actually happens. They’re trying to find a story that’s “worthy of the title” of the Alien franchise. If they can’t crack that code, it sounds like Alvarez is willing to move on without a second film.

“The mistake usually with sequels is to make them because you can, and because of the success of Romulus, we definitely can make a sequel,” he states. “But I wouldn’t do it unless we have a really good idea for it, something that’s worthy of the title.”

This is a sentiment that the filmmaker has shared on numerous occasions since Romulus first debuted.

“[It’s] not until we find something that we go ‘Ok, that is a movie worth making’ that we really embark on it,” he told io9 back in November. “So that’s the process we are in right now, trying to find a story that is worthy of everyone’s time and is worthy of the title. Otherwise, you never want to fall into the mistake of making [a sequel] just because the first one is a big hit.”