Alien: Romulus director explains how a deleted scene in Aliens inspired the new film

33:02Fede Álvarez: Behind the scenes of Alien: Romulus

When Fede Álvarez watched a deleted scene from James Cameron's Aliens, he noticed something he hadn't seen in many space movies: a bunch of kids running around the space colony. The filmmaker started wondering about the lives of these kids and what it would be like to grow up there.

Now, Álvarez is the writer and director of Alien: Romulus, the newest film in the Alien franchise. The movie looks at the 57 years between Ridley Scott's Alien and Cameron's Aliens, from the perspective of the kids who grew up in space. 

"Once they're in their teens and 20s, they're going to rebel," Álvarez tells Q's Tom Power. "No one's going to be on a planet for 50 years [that] has nothing for you but being a miner or a farmer. That's something that anybody can relate to…. Feeling you were born away from where things happen. And youth always wants to go to explore the world eventually, they want to go out of wherever their small town [is]."

Álvarez himself felt this way growing up in Uruguay. As a teen, he would binge horror and sci-fi films, including the Alien franchise. He would even make his own superhero movies with his friends. 

"I think most people's experience with movies is escapist art," he says. "It takes you to places, if you have no means to go."

But movies did take Álvarez out of his home country. In 2009, he made a low-budget movie about robots destroying a city, where he designed the computer-generated imagery (CGI) himself. He posted it on YouTube one night and went to bed. 

In the morning, he woke up to 150 emails from producers and other movie industry people. It turns out that Kanye West had reshared the film on his blog. 

"The only reason I put it on YouTube was it was easier to send to my friends," he says. "[There] was no intention of making it viral."

When Álvarez flew out to L.A. for movie meetings, he met a producer on the street, who then gave him his first movie deal. This deal turned into the horror film Evil Dead. 

This isn't dissimilar to how Álvarez received his opportunity to write and direct Alien: Romulus. When he finished his second movie, Don't Breathe, he met one of Ridley Scott's producers. He casually mentioned to the producer that he would love to see what happens to the colony kids in the 57 years between Alien and Aliens.

"It wasn't that I was pitching," he says. "It was just two fans talking."

The producer then asked Álvarez to write up an outline of the story. The producer gave it to Scott, who loved it. But Scott was busy filming Alien: Covenant, so he didn't have time to make it. 

Then, the head of 20th Century heard about Álvarez's storyline. He called up the filmmaker in 2020 to talk about the idea he shared with Scott.

"He asked me, 'Would you like to direct and write it?'" Álvarez says. "It's like, 'Absolutely.' And so here we are."

Álvarez says he was thrilled to get to make the movie — especially because it's part of a franchise that influenced himself and many other filmmakers.

"People ask all the time: how do you feel about the pressure? But the reality is that if you truly love it, there's no such thing — the bad side, the flip, the pressure," he says. "You should never let fear come into the process…. Fear is the enemy of creativity."

The full interview with Fede Álvarez is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with Fede Álvarez produced by Lise Hosein