When you don’t have a star or a massive superhero movie to show off in San Diego Comic-Con’s highly visible Hall H, you have to get creative.
And Disney and its 20th Century Studios division have done just that for its Alien: Romulus panel. A bit of theatrics — red strobe lights followed by a gurgling man stumbling across the stage, then dying of a “burst chest” — and video questions from surprise guests from filmmakers such as original Extraterrestrial Director Ridley Scott or filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, among others, can greatly contribute to strengthening the already strong clips that have been shown.
And if that fails, you leave them parting gifts, in this case, rubber alien face huggers that were handed out to all 6,500 people who packed the massive hall of the San Diego Convention Center on Friday, many of whom immediately took selfies and posted the pictures to all their friends. The promotional message succeeded.
Romulus is the first film to be released since 2017 Alien: Covenant and is the first film to be made since Disney acquired Fox in 2019. And while two of those were made in the 2010s to mixed success, they were also big-budget productions, in keeping with filmmaker Ridley Scott’s wont.
The new film was directed by Fede Álvarez, the filmmaker behind more modestly budgeted horror films including his hit, Don’t breatheand new stars and emerging actors such as Cailee Spaeny, Isabela Merced, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Spike Fern and Aileen Wu, all of whom were in attendance Friday except for the latter.
Alien is of course not a new product. It is a revered film franchise that has had some of the best directors at its helm, including Scott, James Cameron, David Fincher and Jean-Pierre Jeunet.
Álvarez said he felt a tremendous amount of pressure going into the film and that he was standing on the shoulders of giants. But he also said that the pressure disappeared on set, which was very hands-on and, for him, a very real environment.
“The pressure is off for me when I realize I’m in the little colony of Weyland (a society in the Alien universe) and all the vehicles driving around are real and the neon signs are Aliens,” he said. “Being in this real space…”
The cast members bonded strongly during the filming of the movie, which was shot chronologically. But it also represented a loss when one of them shot a death scene and left the production. And like any Extraterrestrial As fans know, there are a lot of deaths.
“It was emotional,” Álvarez noted, “because now that person has to go and you moved on with the rest of the cast. And (the deaths) kept happening.”
The filmmaker and cast tried to honor those who came before them and for the production, that meant going back to the original designs and even hiring crew members such as Shane Mahan, who worked on the alien queen in…
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