Recently, rumors began to circulate that the long-planned sequel to Alien: Romulus might have been cancelled altogether. However, a few key creatives and production officials have since spoken up in various ways through social media postings and have at the very least hinted that there is more to this news than meets the eye.
Released in 2024, Fede Álvarez’s Alien: Romulus was something of an intricately and deliberately placed installment within the larger overarching Alien franchise that has been running since Ridley Scott’s original film back in 1979. Romulus was set in the fifty-year story gap between Scott’s original Alien and James Cameron’s sequel, Aliens, which was released in 1986. This allowed the film to channel the aesthetics of those beloved original two films while also covering some uncharted narrative territory, introducing new characters and chronicling their own trials and tribulations with the Xenomorphs.
Álvarez’s film was a hit with critics and audiences alike, effectively relaunching the Alien franchise in a broadly appealing fashion. It also happened to star the likes of Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson in the lead roles, both of whom are tremendous performers who have only seen their star power blossom in the years since then.
However, despite the success of Romulus and immediately announced plans to move forward with a sequel, little has actually come from that other than speculation and confusion. Initially, Álvarez was attached to write and direct the sequel, but the director wound up leaving the film shortly after finishing a draft of the script. This seemed to leave the door open for producer Ridley Scott and co. to find a new director, which just about happened when they entered discussions with Michael Sarnoski (director of Pig and A Quiet Place: Day One) in 2025. However, Sarnoski now seems to be moving forward with other projects, leaving the Romulus sequel in a seeming state of limbo.
This is where those aforementioned recent rumors came in, suggesting that creative difficulties behind the scenes were making it difficult for anyone to find a viable path forward for the hotly anticipated sequel and that instead, the idea was being abandoned in favor of a new, unrelated Alien film from genre filmmaker Brian Duffield (No One Will Save You, the upcoming Whalefall). However, 20th Century Studios president Steve Asbell recently retweeted one of the rumor-filled links with the simple caption of "Nope."
That post was then retweeted by Duffield himself, lending credence to the idea that the Alien film that Duffield is working on is actually the Romulus sequel. Regardless, it seems as if the Alien franchise is still very much a priority for the studio and that given the high-wattage star power of the performers from Romulus and its success, all involved are still seeking to find a way forward with these characters and this story.
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