[Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for Alien: Romulus]

The Big Picture Collider's Steve Weintraub hosts a long spoiler interview with director Fede Álvarez about Alien: Romulus . Álvarez is inspired by Alien 's '80s vibe, its original Xenomorph design, the public distrust of corporations and younger moviegoers' enthusiasm. He thrives off controversy in reviews, creative decisions and practical effects, even in the difficult-to-shoot zero gravity and elevator shaft scenes.

Scavenging an abandoned ship in space comes with its own set of risks, but in Alien: Romulus, the biggest danger is coming toe-to-toe with the iconic Xenomorphs. Set between the classic Alien (1979) and its sequel, Aliens (1986), the extraterrestrial horror harnesses the gritty atmosphere of the '80s era and pays tribute to the beloved franchise. We journey through space alongside Cailee Spaeny (Priscilla), David Jonsson (Industry), Isabela Merced (Madame Web), Archie Renaux (Shadow and Bone), and Spike Fearn (Aftersun), with horror aficionado Fede Álvarez at the helm.

In this exclusive spoiler interview, Collider's Steve Weintraub talks inspiration, practical effects and philosophy with Álvarez, especially diving into his filmmaking process and why he thrives on divisive decisions. Hear about his experience shooting zero gravity scenes, designing creatures' genitals, and receiving notes from Ridley Scott in the video above, or read about it in the transcript below.

Alien: Romulus 710 R Sci-FiHorror

While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonists come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe.

Release Date August 16, 2024 Director Fede Alvarez Cast Cailee Spaeny , David Jonsson , Archie Renaux , Isabela Merced , Spike Fearn , Aileen Wu , Rosie Ede , Soma Simon , Bence Okeke , Viktor Orizu , Robert Bobroczkyi , Trevor Newlin , Annemarie Griggs , Daniel Betts Writers Fede Alvarez , Rodo Sayagues , Dan O'Bannon , Ronald Shusett Distributor(s) 20th Century Franchise(s) Alien Expand Controversy Means You're Doing Something Right "If you've done a work that everybody loves, you probably didn't push it hard enough."

COLLIDER: The movie came out last night and just started playing Friday morning. What is it like for you as the director helming this IP that people fucking love? What is it like for you Friday morning after release when you've now seen and read reviews, you know what the box office might be like? What are you feeling right now?

FEDE ÁLVAREZ: I haven't read reviews, to be honest. I learned my lesson in the past. To give you an example, even when I've been lucky -- sometimes you have overwhelmingly positive reviews -- the only ones I remember are the stabs to the gut. If you asked me about what review headline I remember from Don't Breathe, the only one I remember is Deadline's that said, "Don't Breathe, More Like Don't Go." It's the only one I remember, and I'm sure there were a lot of lovely ones. I just don't remember the good ones, and I said I don't want to do that to myself anymore.

I did go to Rotten Tomatoes and I looked at it, and I was like, "Great, mostly positive." If we are where we are, I'm happy. I'm a Rick Rubin follower and fan; he's like my creative guru. I just always love the music he produces, and I'm sure you read his book, or you know about his book that he put out last year, The Creative Act. I'm a big fan of his philosophy, and Rick Rubin says, "If you've done a work that everybody loves, you probably didn't push it hard enough." So, where we are is good because I think he says the great work divides the audience. What makes someone love it, makes the other one hate it. That's why that's the way I introduced my screening in London. Same with the Beyond Fest. I sent the video, and I said to everybody, "Look, if you're a fan, I hope you really like it, and I hope you love it. If you don't like it, I hope you fucking hate it." [Laughs] And in a way, that is true because I believe that's how the fan works -- you just fucking hate it, and you just go, "One star. Fucking rubbish from beginning to the end."

That's kind of what I felt had happened. I was really trying not to read much, just seeing the overall sentiment. That's what I can see, that some people really truly love it and just love it with passion, and couldn't wait for this movie. The ones that didn't, which usually are just people that I know, some reporters and some reviewers who always hate my work, so I go there, and I don't even dare to look at the headline, and I can see that it's the same sentiments, "I fucking hated it." So, I congratulate myself, or at least I hope it would make Rick Rubin proud that we really went that way, that we tried that, we really went for it and tried hard on many fronts and took risks that I knew were gonna please some people, and some people were gonna hate it. So, that's all I've been doing last night and this morning a little bit, kind of getting the sense of the sentiment out there.

The best part is I went last night to Burbank to the AMC 16, with Rodo [Sayagues], my co-writer, and a couple of friends, and we sat down there, and watched it with a full audience of people that went to see it, and it was a great screening. Then, I was walking out and someone recognized me and was like, "It's a group of 35 of us. We all came together to watch the movie." They asked me to take a photo of them, and that is the best part. They all loved it, and for me to meet the real audience and chat with them about the film, that's really truly what it comes down to, and that's why I'm enjoying this weekend. Hopefully, I can just sit down with people who love these movies as much as I do and chat, and see if they notice this or that. They tell me shit they notice, and they ask me, "Is this intentional?" And I tell them, "Yes." That is truly the pure form of enjoyment, meeting the fans and chatting with them. So, in that regard, it's been great.

'Alien: Romulus' Was Originally Straight to Streaming "You're a filmmaker that belongs in theaters."

A lot of people might not realize that originally this was gonna be a Hulu movie, and then before you started filming, they decided to make it theatrical. What I'm curious about is if you're making a Hulu movie, you have a wildly different budget than when you're making a theatrical movie. What was the version that you were making for Hulu, and how similar is it to the movie that we got?

ÁLVAREZ: This is the budget for the Hulu movie, by the way. The budget never changed. [Laughs] I don't know if they announced it or not at the time, but we made deals in 2021, so I can't blame anybody for not betting on the theatrical experience in 2021 when everything was dead. Basically, 20th Century was given the green light to make a certain amount of movies for the platform at a certain price, and that price was kind of the same for everything, which is basically around the budget of our movie.

I think the studio knew that potentially by the time we were making the movie, they were hopeful that it was going to change, that it was gonna go theatrical. No one at the studio enjoyed the idea that it was gonna be for streaming. That was my sense. You're gonna have to ask them, but my sense was that they weren't happy about it. There was just no option. So as soon as the theaters were coming back alive and we had a script already and they saw the ambition of the movie and they started watching some of the dailies, it was a combination of many factors that led them to say, "No, it should be a theatrical experience." Watching the movie at IMAX last night, I was like, "No way in hell this would have been a movie for streaming." But remember, Dune actually was day-and-date streaming, as well. Not because no one thought that movie would deserve to be on the platform on day one, it's just a reality of that. That was just a product of that.

But I couldn't be happier. I was texting with a producer friend of mine who I was developing a movie with at the time that I decided to do Alien and jumped ship on the other movie. That person told me, with the best intention, "Do not do it because, Fede, you're a filmmaker that belongs in theaters, not in streaming." I remember that stayed with me, and thank god, here we are. I've never made a streaming movie so far. Let's see how much we can keep that going.

'Don't Breathe' Wasn't Gory to Prove You Wrong "I'll show you." Close

I'm curious about the level of gore and blood that's in the movie because, listen, a lot of people know that you enjoy gore, guts, and blood in your films. How did you decide the level of how much you wanted to depict in this film? This is a more mainstream film. This is something that a lot of people are gonna go see.

ÁLVAREZ: To everyone's chagrin, sometimes, I don't dial it up and down depending on budget or mainstream or not mainstream. [Laughs] It just really goes with what Rodo, my writer, and I think should happen. Don't Breathe was not very gory, and it was a smaller movie than Evil Dead. We thought it was gonna be even more niche and not be any bigger. But it just really depends on the material and what it is, and how much you think you should show. I think with Evil Dead, in its DNA, is kind of a splatterhouse, Giallo kind of gorefest movie that, if you don't add that, it's not Evil Dead. So, we knew we had to do that, and I think I know how to do it in the right measure to not cross the line to absurdity where it becomes funny. Though, horror at that level is a thin line.

Then, Don't Breathe felt like it didn't need it. I think I said it at the time, Don't Breathe was me showing that I can scare you without using gore because someone said, "Ah, Evil Dead is not really scary. It's just gory, and that's why it works. It's not really suspenseful. It's just scares." And I was like, "Oh, fuck, I'll show you," which is kind of my motivation to make movies in general, just to imagine there's an imaginary audience here or there, and I want to prove to them something. The whole movie is me going, "I'll show you." Don't Breathe was that. That was me trying to have a platonic conversation with an audience who were saying that I cannot scare them without being gory. Don't Breathe, for the most part, has barely any blood in it. There's other juices here and there, but not blood. [Laughs]

This was different, as well, to honor the original movies. They're not particularly bloody. There are a few kills, like the first kill in that movie, the first kill of the Xenomorph, when Brett [Harry Dean Stanton] dies, and we actually play that very similar in this one, just in her mouth, straight to the face. There's some gore. I mean, you tell me. What are the goriest parts of the movie? For me sometimes it's hard to think about it because I don't approach it from that place. I think, "What's the reality of the idea of the kill and what is showing too much and what is showing too little?" Hopefully, I'll stand right on that line.

Listen, when she's giving birth, when the Chestburster happens.

ÁLVAREZ: Giving birth, I've seen people upset at that scene. Clearly, they've never witnessed a real birth because what happened is exactly what happened in real birth, or less sometimes! I witnessed the birth of my two kids, and I've been in rooms where, while I was witnessing those or just being with my wife in the room waiting for the kid to come and you hear the other rooms. It is a madhouse, and when you look at it, it's a bloodbath. I don't think the character of Kay [Isabela Merced] goes through anything especially bigger than anybody. Even the blood that we see, that's exactly how it works. So, I wanted to be faithful. What I didn't wanna do was make it vanilla and break it down. It is a normal birth of an abnormal thing, but even the proportions and the size and everything, we make sure it was accurate for a big baby.

I don't think you overdid it. I'm just talking specifically about some of the scenes.

ÁLVAREZ: It is really bloody.

Young Moviegoers Are "Blown Away" By 'Alien: Romulus'

One of the things that I commend you on, and I think a lot of people aren't realizing, is if you stand in line at an AMC Burbank or any movie theater, the people that are going to the movies are teenagers and young adults. I think a lot of the reasons why some of the certain movies are not performing is because it doesn't appeal to a younger audience. How did you decide to focus on a younger cast? Because I think that's gonna bring a lot of younger folks to go see this.

ÁLVAREZ: I heard that a few times. I heard that people were thinking that was my thinking. I don't know. If you look at any X-Men movie or Deadpool & Wolverine, even The Avengers for that matter, they're not teenagers, they're not in their 20s. Most of those actors are in their 30s and 40s. It still works. The premise that because the cast is young, it will attract a young audience because otherwise they don't, I would argue not necessarily. There are other elements that attract them, but the cast doesn't have to necessarily be young to attract them.

It was just what made sense to me because that's what I enjoy doing in my films. Usually, I have a younger cast. I felt that it hadn't been done, and we needed to approach Alien from a standpoint that was slightly different for the fans that have seen the other ones; I have seen adults and truckers in space too many times. I was like, "Let's just do it differently." My original instinct of going younger, like I always do, made sense because it was gonna refresh the seventh installment in the franchise.

Maybe for the studio, it made a lot of sense, and they fast-tracked it when we had a script because they believed that that could be the case. I hope they're right and young people do show up. I've seen it a few times now, and I always look in the crowd for the youngest people I can, and I go and ask them, "Did you enjoy it?" Usually, they're fucking blown away. They never saw it coming because they hadn't seen the other ones, and they get exposed to all these ideas. 45 years of cinema and the ideas of all these movies compacted in two hours; if I can melt their brains, they don't understand what just happened. I hope they spread the word and young people do show up this weekend.

This works because older fans like me, you, and a ton of people out there are going to see this movie, but you need to bring in new fans to go see it and reenergize the Alien franchise. Having the cast you put together is gonna get a lot of younger people to go see the movie.

ÁLVAREZ: I definitely agree. It definitely helps, and it won't hurt in that regard.

Why 'Alien: Romulus' Takes Place Between 'Alien' and 'Aliens' Close

The story takes place after Alien and before Aliens. How did you decide where and when you wanted the story to take place? And was it almost something else?

ÁLVAREZ: I knew from day one that if I made an Alien movie, I wanted it to take place in that era of technology of Alien mostly and some of Aliens. I knew for a fact that it wasn't going to be glossy holograms and white, shiny floors. It wasn't going to be any of that. It was gonna really go to that grit of those original films. The whole bet was not just a look, but the movie needed to feel very '80s, which I think it does and which a lot of my friends felt. That was the best compliment they could give me: "It made me feel like when I watched movies in those days. It felt like that was the style of the film." And that's all calculated. That's why Cailee [Spaeny], when she curses, she goes, "You son of a bitch," which is very of that era instead of all the alternatives that could be more modern.

Why I think it will work and why it connects with modern audiences, as well, is because when [Quentin] Tarantino put out Pulp Fiction (1994) in the mid-nineties, I'd go watch that movie and, like everybody else, we'd all get blown away by the vibe and the style of the movie. But our parents' generation will tell us it's just an exploitation movie from the '60s and '70s -- what is so new about it? For me, it was all new and unique. For anybody to have seen all those movies back then, that's all it was -- those cars, that vibe, that music, that language. That's what made it modern. That's the bet. Take the best of any era, combine them with the best things of today, and the result you get is something that looks modern. Same as when [Francis Ford] Coppola did Dracula in the 1990s, with all the tricks and visual style of what he thought was 100% 1950s monster movies. It looked so modern at the time; it was so groundbreaking stylistically.

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But you could argue why we should make a movie from that era. Same here. I wanna make it from that era. I want it to look like those movies. I want it to feel like those movies. The story we wanted to tell made sense that it happened a few years after the first film. That was mostly the decision. I just really wanted to make a movie that felt like it belonged in those times.

Introducing Jackson's Star to the Alien Franchise How much is CGI, and how much is real?

I love the production design of the whole movie, but I especially love the beginning when you have that long shot of her walking with David [Jonsson] and you see the garden. It feels very real. It feels like you're on this planet. Where did you film this? How much was CGI addition? How did that shot come together?

ÁLVAREZ: That's all real. The CG is a big atmosphere generator in the distance [and] one of the ships that flies on top of them. In the next big shot, when they arrive at the mines, everything was there. We built all the trailers, we had the vehicles, and we had the ships on the right, the big Corbelans that are parked there, but we do some tricks that I think are necessary. There's a big ship flying above them, and we actually had this massive crane with this massive rig on the side of the ship flying by on top. The lights, the fog, the interaction of an object is actually there. When you add the CG element, it feels like it belongs and doesn't feel like it's just been added later. They've done that with helicopters in the past. It adds a level of realism that is necessary. Even when you see the Corbelan taking off for the first time, we have a massive rig there with wind, with lights, everything. All the things that must interact with the environment are there to interact with the environment.

The Jackson Star colony was built on a coal power plant in the countryside of Hungary that was from the Soviet era; it had very specific architecture that really lends itself to this. Instead of having straight columns, it has columns in the side -- boom, instant science fiction. We had some tube lights there, and that was it. I posted on my Twitter a 360 view of that place where you can see everything that is real, [like] the farm. The only elements we added were the fly-by ship and the atmosphere generator in the back. But I loved that day. For me, it was like traveling to what could have been Hadley's Hope at its prime, the colony from Aliens.

The truth is less hopeful than James Cameron's version, what you see in the extended version, where you see people there and kids and everybody's happy. I'm from a Third World country, and I was born in a dictatorship. My idea of growing up in a colony is a bit more bleak. Also, I think it makes sense these days. If there was a colony at the end of the world, people who would choose to go there would be people who don't have a lot of options here, maybe. They go looking for new horizons, and what if things don't turn out so well? The mines are drying, or there are problems -- good luck getting out of there; no one's gonna invest millions and take you back to Earth. That was the premise of that universe. I'm really proud of how that turned out. We took our time to have that long oner and get you to live there with the people. I think it's good that we took that time.

It's a fantastic shot.

'Alien: Romulus' Is Inspired by Pandemic Controversies

One of the other things I really like about the movie is that you talk about corporations. I believe what this film is selling, and like you just said, corporations are not your friend. No matter who you work for, ultimately, you're a line item on a sheet. The film gets into that -- it's not screaming at you, but it's there. Talk a little bit about that, and the fact that you're not just screaming at people, "Watch out."

ÁLVAREZ: This was the big bad, as well, on the whole Weyland-Yutani front, the corporation, the big company that's always been present in the stories. In the late '70s, it was kind of a radical idea to think, "The company's not gonna give a shit about you, and you're expendable." That's why it works so well. People were happy to see that expressed on the big screen. They were like, "Fuck yeah, they're right. That's what's happening." Post-Vietnam, people understood that the government sometimes doesn't give a shit about their people, and they have other agendas -- if people have to die, so be it. It was an idea that needed to be expressed. That's why that movie did so well.

By the '80s, I don't think they cared too much about that concept in the [Ronald] Reagan era. That's there as greed, there's that aspect of the story, but it evolves through the years; it evolves as we evolve as a society. That's why it's good it always comes every six to seven years, and there's a slightly different point of view. Now in 2024, to make a movie where the point is the corporations just don't care about you is not a radical idea anymore. It will be like a "duh" moment. It's not radical. We needed to approach this from a slightly different standpoint, and one of the biggest ideas that we went for is there was a twist that the character of Rook [Daniel Betts] in the movie, who represents the company, is saying, "What we do here is good for you. We're actually trying to help you. We're trying to save you from yourselves. You, as human beings, need this help." It is definitely a product of the times. You'll see them down the line a few years from now.

I'm always careful about talking too much about these things because I think themes should transpire out of the story and directors and writers should never really talk too much about what the movie is talking about. Here is a layer of it -- it's not really what the movie is about, but it's something I personally saw through the pandemic -- the whole vaccine discussion. I learned something about humanity that I would never have guessed. With a deadly virus that is literally killing everyone -- everybody lost someone during COVID, like an uncle; it's not something that you just saw on the news, it was clear that it was happening -- still, a lot of people, I would say roughly half of humanity, was saying, "I don't want a vaccine. I'd rather die being a human than feel that that thing is gonna turn me into something else."

I think that they messed up from a PA standpoint, where they explained too much about how that first vaccine worked. I remember them saying it changed your DNA, and if they had said right away, "It's a classic vaccine for a deadly virus," it would have been less problematic. As soon as we heard that it was something that was going to change who you were as a human to save you from the virus, it's incredible how most people would rather die being human than being improved or changed into something else, particularly when it comes from the government. I'm on the side of, I got my vaccine, it doesn't matter. But I had a lot of very smart friends who I would consider to be smart enough to understand it, but they were on the other side. They would go, "No."

That was something that really inspired what the company does now and how those humans react to it. That's why Rook is saying, "We do this thing, it's good for you," and they go, "Fuck this." I think the audience right away goes, "Fuck that," even before we reveal that maybe it's not ready. In defense of Rook, he says it needs to be taken for further development. Rook doesn't say it's ready. We never tried to write villains. We really try to write people who actually tell the truth and are being quite open about their intentions. I think it works better.

There's a lot of that era, 2021, I noticed in the movie later on. It's not even something that we thought about too much at the time. I was watching it the other day, and I was like, "Oh wow, there's so much influence clearly coming out of those times within this panacea we're gonna give you, and it's gonna save you from catastrophes that are happening in the world." Seeing how usually the youth will go, "Fuck this, I would never trust the company to inject this in myself." [There's] the lack of trust in the company. The audience can decide who's right and who's wrong in this story. Because it's not ready, it's clear that we're saying, "Good idea that you didn't inject that into yourself." It's definitely inspired by a lot of those controversies that came with the pandemic.

I will say that there are some companies out there that actually do seem to care. But unfortunately, with the large majority, you're a line item on a balance sheet.

ÁLVAREZ: The movie and any story's not trying to say, "This is what's happening." It's just a reflection of society and how people are reacting to things. But the truth is it's really hard to know. What is obvious is how society is dealing with certain things. How are we dealing with corporations? What's our perception of corporations? The truth is hard to tell, but the perception is clear.

I've seen this movie twice in IMAX, and it's so awesome when it goes full screen. Eventually, the majority of people are gonna watch this at home. They're gonna watch it on their phones or wherever they're gonna see it. Do you know if the IMAX formatting of full screen will be available on Disney+ or is it just in theaters?

ÁLVAREZ: I wish I could give you the headline. We're in discussions right now for the Blu-ray release. What I have asked is to release the IMAX version, so it's full screen [with] no bars. What I was trying to do, and I don't know if it's possible yet, is to have both versions, like we used to have on the DVD. You remember you used to have the wide screen version of the pan and scan. We're gonna try to do that because I do believe it's a cool way to see it. My DP and I started this movie thinking, "Okay, let's do the Lawrence of Arabia aspect ratio," and then when we saw the IMAX version, which basically removed the bars, we were like, "Fuck, this is so cool. [Laughs] Let's embrace this. Why are we cropping at the top and bottom so much?" So, we kind of converted ourselves in the process from, like, purist, very wide aspect ratio to this almost 4:3 aspect ratio.

Related Why You Must See 'Alien: Romulus' in IMAX

The Xenomorphs are returning to the big screen next month.

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This is just me spit-balling, but you could also release a version that has the bars on the left and right sides of the screen rather than the top and the bottom.

ÁLVAREZ: You could, sure.

Zero Gravity Required Two Full Sets Being Built "Zero-G is a nightmare for everybody."

What scene or sequence ended up being the toughest to film and why?

ÁLVAREZ: Everything Zero-G is a nightmare for everybody. [Laughs] The first big challenge is how to make it work. On the day, the complication is that people on wires and harnesses are painful and very uncomfortable. Actors must be put through a lot of core training to be able to sell it, to be able to stay balanced and not shake and really sell that Zero-G vibe. That's the whole thing. On my plate is to figure out a way to shoot it where I can hide the gravity. If you just put people on wires and shoot them, you'll see the gravity; you'll see it in their body weight, you'll see it in the way they lean in the direction of another, how the body hangs. Eventually, you'll see the gravity. So how do I hide it?

The challenge was that, and the solution, which I'm really proud of the way it turns out on screen, was a few things. One I discovered soon enough. Me and my DP, Galo Olivares, both thought, "If there's no gravity, there's no horizon." The rule of thumb was every time there's no gravity, the camera could never be locked looking at the horizon. It needs to drift. That's why when they enter the tunnel for the first time, and they start dragging, we seamlessly move into the Zero-G without you noticing because they're so compact in that tight space. The camera starts to drift, just go to the side. When they're inside, it's constantly rotating on that axis. Without getting too technical, it's tricky. The camera rigs usually don't have that access. You have pan and tilt. So, we have to add all this specific gear on the techno-crane to be able to do all these movements. It had a third axis on the wheels for the operator. For very seasoned operators to really nail their shots, it's a whole thing. It took a lot more work than normal.

The last trick that really did it was on some of the sets where the Zero-G happens, I had to build them twice: horizontally and vertically. In most of those scenes, what happens is we cut from one shot in one set and the next shot, usually in the other set, and then back. You have someone floating at you like this and when you can feel that gravity is pushing them down, I will cut to the set that is like this. The gravity is pulling away from the camera, so I hide it behind them. So, you don't really see it. She really drifted and really lifted, with her hair floating up, and the clothes, because now they're actually hanging, and then back to the other one. When we're back in the horizontal, maybe we're upside down now. So, gravity is hard to find. That's the whole trick.

It's the same thing with the elevator shaft. We had a full elevator shaft that was shorter, that was actually vertical, and we had the long elevator shaft that we built like what you see in the movie. There are some extensions at the very end in some shots, but it was massive, and it was really long. It was built horizontally to be able to go up and down with the camera. I'm really proud of that when I see it. That elevator that you see coming out is actually real, it's not CG, which most would have done. We had a big elevator on a hydraulic thing just coming up and down with the techno-crane chasing it, which was the most fun game ever. There's one shot where the elevator hits the techno-crane -- it's a very expensive piece of equipment [laughs] -- that actually made it to the movie. It's when he falls, and David Jonsson catches the elevator. We actually missed our mark in the elevator. The hydraulic thing hits the techno-crane, and the whole camera goes [makes banging noises]. I left it in the movie to make my grip suffer when you watch the movie. [Laughs]

Fede Álvarez Will Always Start at the Most Ambitious Place "I tend to go the hard way, the most difficult way."

I remember that shot. At any point is your line producer pulling you aside and saying, "Are you sure we need the elevator shaft?"

ÁLVAREZ: Every day. That's just the history of my moviemaking: my line producer taking me to the side and going, "Are you sure we need to do it this way?" The way I make films is not the way the crew made the last 20 films. I'm used to it now. I took it personally in the beginning. On Evil Dead, believe me, all the things I wanted to do there, no one thought it was the right way to do it. "Why would you do it this way when you could do it CG? Why would you do it this way when it's so much simpler to do this other way?"

If any part of me believes that that other simpler way will be seen in camera, that you will see the shortcut, that you'll see that you did CG, I just usually go, "Fuck no, we cannot do it that way."

I tend to go the hard way, the most difficult way, but I think it translates. Most of the time, it pays off, and you can really feel it on the screen. Same here in the elevator shaft -- there was a lot of discussion about whether we really needed it.

This is my process, as mental as it is -- I read the scene, and the first thing I'm gonna propose at the table is to do exactly what the scene says. It's an elevator shaft, "Let's build a real elevator shaft." It's 20 stories up, "Let's do it." Then everybody goes, "Are you out of your mind?" And I ask them, "Why not? Why can't we do it?" Usually, it's money. Okay, "How many stories can we do if we can build it?" "We could do 10, but it's a risk if someone falls and dies." Okay, I get that. I start taking it from the top. I start in an ideal place, and let people explain to me. Even if I know I'm never gonna build it, it's an exercise I do. I just let them explain to me why not. When they have a really solid argument, I accept it, and I take it down one notch. But wherever I end up, it will probably be the most ambitious place we can be.

It's almost like, "Okay, Zero-G -- can we go to space?" They go, "No." I'll go, "Can we build a set in one of those planes that drops down? Let's find out." We do the measuring and, "No, there's no plane that's big enough to put our sets in, and we cannot do that." At least if you start with the best ambition, whatever you end up with will probably be the best technique for it, instead of doing what I think a lot of productions do, which is right away they go, "Okay, we know how to do this. Let's put a green screen, let's put some wires, let's fake it. It's all good." I cannot accept that, and I don't do that. So, that's why line producers usually are a bit baffled at the beginning.

So far, they've always been really proud at the end when they see the result. There's nothing I love more than -- and I got it many times in my career -- when I meet them, and you see the crew and people after the movie, and they go, "Now I understand what you were doing and why you were doing it this way," and they're so happy.

David Jonsson Blew His 'Alien: Romulus' Director's Mind Jonsson read the switch-up scene to prove he could play both sides of the coin.

Which of the models that were built for the movie did you keep?

ÁLVAREZ: I didn't keep any of them. I think they're in storage somewhere. I haven't kept anything at the moment. I'm in the middle of the negotiation with the studio. It tends to be the rule of thumb: if it does really well, you get to keep more props. Hopefully, we'll do really well this weekend, and I would love to keep the Corbelan. That was a beautiful model that Ian Hunter, who is a legend in model making, did for us.

The whole cast is excellent, but I do have to give props to David because his performance is just fantastic, and he has to do a lot of different levels. How did you know David was the right one because his performance has to work?

ÁLVAREZ: I didn't know his work from before, and he read for me, and you could tell there that he had what it takes. He was really passionate about it. It was a very long process to find that actor for that cast. I always take too long on the casting. I'm infamous at this point because I finally pulled the trigger on casting, usually a week before principal. [Laughs] I really wanna make sure that I turned every stone and didn't compromise and didn't choose too soon. I think this time it did work, and I thought David was amazing. He really wanted it; he really loved it. He was a big fan of my movies, as well, which always helps because they know what they're getting into. He was familiar with my films and how I make movies, which is a big part because otherwise, they get surprised at why I do things a certain way. So, it's good that he was familiar with my films, so he knew what to expect.

It takes time to see what the real talent of the star is. He can convey both sides of the coin that he needs to do for this character. He was really good at finding that first character -- the innocent, gentle giant brother that he plays in the first half of the film. Then he can really play the other part. One of my favorite moments in the movie is after the face-hug happened, and he comes out of the shadows with a British accent, and suddenly he's so smart and so articulate. That was the scene he read to show me he could do that, and it just blew my mind. Young actors, a lot of time, don't know the main rule of, "Show up on time and learn your lines." It's the gift that a lot of movie stars have. They forget that, and they don't know their lines, or they're fumbling with them. These guys are not like that. David was a total pro and [had] total devotion to the craft and such a presence on camera.

It's a great character. It's one of those characters that actors are dying to find, someone that can allow you to play all that range. Making sure you stay on the good side of the audience was a massive challenge for this character. It would have been so easy to fall into unlikable or irredeemable. He makes some choices in the movie that could have been, "That's it. I don't like this character anymore," which is very difficult. He managed to keep the audience on his side throughout. That is really a testament to his talent, his nuance, and his performance.

Fede Álvarez Is Eyeing Something Original After 'Romulus' "There's a new generation that just wants movies that belong to them."

The movie is gonna open this weekend, and it has very good reviews. Have you already had that phone call from Disney saying, "What are you thinking?"

ÁLVAREZ: No, not about anything specific. They've been very supportive and thank god we got the call. Usually, you want to get that call before the reviews come in, and before you see that it's gonna do well. You want to get it there because that is not result-oriented love. I did get the call during the week from everybody who runs the studio and Disney, and everybody's been praising the film. It was really a great process making it with them. Whatever we want to do next, I'm sure they'll be happy to support us, which is what you want. I've always been lucky that way. I never felt differently in all these years making movies. I always felt I have people that support me and believe in me even if something doesn't work so well, and I make a movie that doesn't work. I always have people that believe in me enough to let me make another film. Hopefully it stays that way.

Do you know what you wanna do next? Do you want to continue playing in the Alien universe? Do you wanna go do something radically different?

ÁLVAREZ: I don't know about radically different, but Rodo and I definitely have the itch now of going and creating something completely new and original. As much as I loved working on this film, more as a big-picture audience person, I feel like Hollywood desperately needs people to give them original material and create new things. While we were watching the trailer for my movie the other day, I felt like there were so many things that connected the other movies in the past. I think there's a new generation that just wants movies that belong to them, that aren't associated with everything that came before. That's what we wanna do.

I would love to make another one of these at some point because it's such a great sandbox. If people really show up for this one, and they want to know more, and they want to know where the story goes after this, it would definitely be fun to do. Before that, I would probably want to do an original film. We know what we want to do, I just cannot tell you about it. Rodo and I have been working on something that we're gonna start. The plan is to start writing as soon as I sleep for a few weeks once this is all said and done. Then we'll get going on that.

'Evil Dead' + 'Aliens' = the 'Romulus' Offspring "[We] really go full-throttle horror as aggressively as we can." Close

Let's talk about the very ending of the film and that last shot. How did you guys decide where you wanted the film to end? What the ending would be? How early on in the writing process did you know where it was all going and deciding on the baby and what it would become?

ÁLVAREZ: It is our natural tendency. If you look at Evil Dead, it is exactly the same ending -- an abomination rises from hell. It is actually similar. I would love to see a meme of the Abomination and the Offspring sharing a coffee and a cigarette. They're very similar creatures, and [were] approached in quite a similar way technically. I knew that I wanted to make sure that I would save the most radical, scariest stuff for the end. I had this perverse enjoyment of imagining the audience thinking the movie's over, having heard it gets really scary and thinking, "It wasn't that scary," and then suddenly an alarm is triggered, and they go, "Oh fuck, here we go." That's what I felt last night, particularly because I'm happy that people have been hyping that ending. I think people think it's the whole flying acid, [or] the elevator shaft, which is pretty intense, and I'm very proud of all that stuff, but it's more Aliens than Alien with that ending -- adventure, shooting, action, horror.

The way I imagine it in my mind is like the audience is going, "Okay, I survived. It wasn't that bad." When they turn to see me in the audience, I'm just taking my jacket off and slinging it up [laughs], and you go, "Oh fuck, here we go. It's coming. Something's gonna happen." [We] really go full-throttle horror as aggressively as we can. This is what's happened in all my horror movies. I deliver the script, and I've been lucky that I never got over-noted, or it never went into development. It sounds arrogant, but it's true. For good and for bad, the first draft has always been greenlit. Boom, we're making the movie. We work really hard on the first draft. We wanna make sure that we give the studio a movie that they're gonna say yes to right away.

But usually, there's a note about the most fucked up thing about the movie. Usually, the note is like, "Do you think you really need that, or can we just take that out?" Or sometimes, "Yes, we'll make the movie, but we cannot do that." And usually, that's what makes me double down on it. When someone says that, I know that that is where the success of the film lies. If you think about any great horror movie, I'm sure when someone reads the script, like the "Fuck me, Jesus" of The Exorcist, no one said, "Yeah, I can't wait! It's gonna make a lot of money. Let's put that in there." [Laughs] The natural reaction of a studio should be, "Are you sure you want to do this?" To quote Rain in this movie. That's exactly what they said about the ending. And I was like, "Absolutely."

If they said, "It's all great, let's shoot it," and they didn't react to it, I would have probably at some point been like, "You know what? Let's not do that. We don't need to go there. It's not gonna make an impact, it's gonna make the movie 10 extra minutes long. That might not be worth it." But because they at some point suggested cutting it out or not shooting it, that's when I knew that I needed to do that. There was nothing that was gonna stop me from doing it once they suggested that I needed to cut it out. I mean, the turkey baster [in Don't Breathe], believe me, everybody wanted to take it out of the movie. I told them that was gonna make it a hit, which I didn't know, but I was pretty sure because everybody was gonna talk about that. So, it was no different here. The first movie did that. That last Narcissus scene is the thing of nightmares. It's really when the horror hits a total high in that film. Even when Bishop gets split in two -- oh god! And the queen comes down? Just pure horror. I love to say that movie is not that scary; it's action-horror, but at the time when I was a kid, it was terrifying. It peaks at a level that you would never expect. I think it's in the DNA of Alien to do that in the last few minutes of the film. That's why we always knew it was gonna be there.

Related 'Don't Breathe' Review: Another Wicked Display of Brutality from Fede Alvarez | SXSW 2016

Blind Stephen Lang is a thing of nightmares.

Fede Álvarez Made Sure H.R. Giger Got His Wishes Fulfilled "Fox wouldn't let him do it. It was just too explicit." Close

What the creature was gonna be, that was a process of just thinking of different things. We fell in love early on with the idea of the character laying an egg, as fucked up as that sounds. It subverts the expectations of what's gonna come out of that egg, it not being a Facehugger; it might be an actual baby. It was just a lot of ideas that we fell in love with early on. I knew I was gonna do it without creating a CG creature. We needed to find a guy, and Rodo brought my attention to this 7'7'' basketball player from Michigan, and we just called him up. In the same way that Ridley [Scott] tells the story of how he approached the actor to play the alien in a bar when he was preparing for Alien, it was the same thing here -- I just wrote an email to Robert Bobroczkyi, and I said, "Would you like to be in an Alien movie?"

He was very excited about it, and he put in so much work. He is the star of this weekend because he learned to be a performer and to act. He really does a great performance. He has such a presence. He had to go toe to toe with very seasoned actors, with Isabela Merced in that scene, and I'm so proud of him. It is an exhausting process to be put through hours of body makeup to turn into the Offspring. All credit to him and his dedication. Being tall is one part, but being able to perform that character and create a personality for it and a body language for it, it's really hard, and he did incredibly well.

First of all, I love the design. How did you decide on the Offspring, to put that X around the genital? And did Disney or anyone give you any feedback?

ÁLVAREZ: It was part of the whole process of designing that creature. I thought it would probably be sexless -- not in a binary way, for sure -- and that it was probably something that would lay eggs. They have an egg-laying sort of thing. I read at the time that [H.R.] Giger wanted the eggs to have a vagina. You've seen the design, most likely, that is an egg like this and has a vagina on the top. That's what the original design for the eggs were for the first film. Then Fox wouldn't let him do it. It was just too explicit. That's why we put it on the cocoon in the wall. We were like, "Let's just make sure Giger gets what he wants in this one," and we put the big vagina on the wall. What Giger did at the time, he said he turned it into a cross. He said at the time that he had the final laugh because he put not just one, but two vaginas together at the top of the egg. [Laughs]

I think it was the bombardment of all these Giger videos that I watched in preparation for this just to really get in his head and try to understand how he thought about this thing. It was a mix of inspiration, thinking about what can lay an egg and also the crossed vagina that kind of creates that strange shape. Everybody's staring at it in that shot. That shot is fully practical; there's no CG whatsoever in that shot. The only thing might be the tail, which sometimes needed to be CG, but you barely see the tail in that shot.

I've screened this again and again. If 95% of the image you're looking at is practical, you can sneak in 5-10% CGI and the audience believes it.

ÁLVAREZ: Absolutely. In my little echo chamber of the internet, every time I try to show how much practical we do, there's always a backlash of all the people saying, "It's bullshit." I'm sure you've seen it.

Honestly, I'm pretty active at avoiding what people say on the internet now because the problem is that so many people are leaving comments who don't understand the craft of filmmaking or what goes on behind the scenes.

ÁLVAREZ: I never said there's no CG in the movie. Actually, the trailer showed you -- clearly we didn't go to space. It will be a mix of CG and practical stuff. But I'm with you. The best thing is a healthy combination. If you can build it, you should build it. It's always worth it. I think it's funny that a lot of people think that the creature is CG. They just cannot believe what they're looking at.

Negative Space and Silence Is Terrifying in 'Alien: Romulus' Álvarez strips away everything -- there isn't even movie silence.

Let's talk about the last shot of the film of the ship in space. It's dark, surrounded by stars. Did you always know that was gonna be the last shot? How did you decide on that?

ÁLVAREZ: I think so. In the process of thinking about the last shot. That's two of the most difficult shots the director can think of. Usually, it's really the biggest challenge. That is what you have to put a lot of work into -- what's your first image, and what's your last image? We fell in love with this idea of starting and ending with exactly the same concept. It felt like a good bookend: same shot at the beginning, same shot at the end. What really indicated that was the opening shot of the film, which I'm really proud of. When you think about, "How in hell are you gonna open a movie that starts in space and a ship appears?" How many times have you seen that? All the Star Wars movies have that challenge every time. You always have to be in space because of the crawl most of the times, and then a ship's gonna fly by, or a planet. How am I gonna do this in a new and original way?

I came up with this idea of negative space. If it's space, there's not a lot of light. All the stars really don't bring a lot of light to an object. I was trying to flesh out the first line I ever wrote for the script, which was, "The vacuum of space is dark, bleak. There are no colorful nebulas in sight. It's just a scary void." I wanted a shot that fleshed that out, so it's just stars. Then, I don't know when you notice the ship, but most people don't notice the probe until it's right in your face. You actually see when it opens. It's space with a ship that is coming at you, but because there's no light hidden in it whatsoever, just a very dim kind of moonlight created by the stars, you don't really see it until it's right in front of you. That was something I got really excited about because I knew, "This is a way to introduce a ship that I don't remember having seen before."

In the end, we did the same. The ship flies by. We always knew we were gonna say, "The last survivor of Corbelan." It was just impossible not to do. The lights were gonna go off, the ship disappeared, and we ended up with the same shot at the beginning of the movie, which I thought was a nice way to end it.

The opening shot is interesting because it's silent, and it throws people off. You have the Fox logo with noises and then all of a sudden it's silent until the camera gets to the window and then it kicks in.

ÁLVAREZ: That was another one of those decisions that, when I pitched it, everybody looked at me like I was out of my mind. When we started, we were gonna have sound, and I think the first version they showed me had sound. They had this shit going with some rumble. I was like, "No, let's just go zero," and then zero in movies usually means a bit of an ambiance. There's a little bit of a track that just does a bit of a hum. That's silence in movies. I have experimented with my movies in the past, and it works every tie. It's kind of my bag of tricks. I'm surprised people don't use it much. I just really strip everything, and I tell my sound guys, "When we say nothing, it's nothing. Absolutely nothing. Zero."

That's why it feels like a mistake. It almost feels like the sound is gone, and you want to adjust your TV. I do that a few times in the movie. I discovered in Evil Dead in some scenes, when that happened by accident when the ambiance track was muted, I felt it was so tense because the silence that it created was so deep in the theater that you don't dare to go for the popcorn because it will be so loud. I've been using it since. Don't Breathe -- had a lot of that. Here, I do it at the beginning, and when they open the doors, when they go into the hallway with all the Facehuggers, it's the same. I stripped the ambiance track, so you're left with this unbearable silence. It's something in my bag of tricks, and I believe it's something that is truly effective when creating suspense.

'Alien: Romulus' Was Filmed Mostly Chronologically

I read that you shot the movie chronologically, but of course, I don't know how much of that is true. How much did you actually shoot chronologically?

ÁLVAREZ: Most movies jump back and forth, they do the end at the beginning, go back. They tend to do all the location work first, and then you move to the stage, et cetera. Our movie is probably not literally every day, but it's like this: you do day one, day three, day two, day four, day five, day seven, maybe day six. We do advance like this throughout the whole movie. I think the exception might have been the first day was the big city, the colony Jackson Star. We did a few days of that, then after we were done, we did the interior of her waking up because that was going on stage. We did the location work first, but that's on the same day. It's technically chronological in a way that these first three days are the first day in the story, and so on and so forth. That's definitely how I did it. There might have been some realities of some set that is not ready, so you jump ahead a few minutes in the story and then back two minutes. But for the most part, it has all been chronological.

That's one of those signs for the line producer to go, "Do you really need to do it that way?" [Laughs] But it makes sense. Everybody prefers that -- the actors prefer that. The actors always take some time to get into their character. It's hard for them on day one to find out who their characters are and play the way that they're gonna play it. You hide the inconsistencies of everything when you go chronologically because the character changes as the actor finds their character, and it goes in order. What sometimes happens that I notice a lot is you start the movie, and then, at some point in the movie, the character changes a little bit because it happens to be the first day of shooting. You shot the midpoint of the story at the beginning. So, there's a strange moment there. It helps me to go through a real adventure with the characters. The actors go through the same adventure.

Sometimes it's not possible. If it was a location movie, forget about it. Once you're in a location, you had better get all the work done that you have in that place because once you leave, you'll never come back. But here, because it's mostly stage work, it was totally doable. We just hop from one stage to another.

You got lucky, though, that the stages you needed were ready on time. For the most part.

ÁLVAREZ: It makes sense because, ideally, the movie should escalate in scope. Your biggest sets are later in the movie, so you start shooting while those sets are not ready. As you progress, you get closer and closer to shooting on those sets, they get ready by the time you need them. It made sense here. It was totally doable.

How long did you have to shoot this? Was it a 50-day shoot, an 80-day shoot?

ÁLVAREZ: I don't remember exactly, but probably between 70 and 80 days.

That's a good amount of time nowadays. Once you break 100, that's the barometer. You know what I mean?

ÁLVAREZ: It's all relative. One of the things [Ridley's] most proud of in every movie he's made is how short of a time he did it. If you ever talk with him, I'm making this up but Gladiator 2, 42 days. He really likes to do them in a short time. He shoots with 10 cameras, so he has different techniques, so he can get a lot done in one day. I usually shoot with two cameras, tops, and a lot of single-camera work. The way I designed the shots and the way I do it, it would be hard to have more than one camera sometimes. So, it takes more time. It doesn't really reflect the budget. Some movies are shot in 40 days and cost three times what this movie costs.

Just How Much Did Ridley Scott Collaborate on 'Alien: Romulus'?

What was it like showing Ridley the movie for the first time? And what was his reaction? Did he know going in about the Offspring?

ÁLVAREZ: He knew. He had read the script. I would meet with him at every big checkpoint in the story when making the movie. When I had the pitch first, then when I had a 10-pager, then when I had the first draft, then when I had a shooting draft, et cetera. When I had the cut of the film, I sent the movie to him. He watched it in the theater, and I wanted to see him right away. I really wanted to get his fresh reaction out of the film and what he felt. I went to see him, sat down, and waited at the table; I had a notepad and a pen next to me, just waiting to hear whatever he had to say to write it down and remember what his first reaction was. He walked in, and he said, "What can I say? It's fucking great." And then he said, "You have a big movie here." He really believed that the movie would do great. He told me, "I think this can do as well as Prometheus did." I hope he's right. And he said it at the time when I thought this was gonna be smaller and more for the horror community. All the horror audience shows up, and no more. I didn't see it as an event movie like I think is becoming right now.

He's 80-something years old, and he has so much experience, so clearly, he knows a thing or two. We went into the details, and towards the end of the process of cutting, he would give me a lot of notes. He said in an interview on the red carpet that he would give the notes to get me mad. He doesn't say that because I got mad at him or anything. He says that because he's a director. He knows that every director, when you get your notes, you get mad. You hate notes. No director loves to get a set of notes. It doesn't matter who they come from. He assumes that I got mad at the notes, and he's probably right. I don't love notes because when I put a movie forward, I'm saying, "This is the movie." So, anything that's like, "You need to take a look at this or take another look at that," I just get like, "What?" But that's a natural reaction if you really care and you're passionate about your film. You'll have a reaction that is not joyful. No one loves notes.

But we had a healthy back and forth where he made me see things that I needed to address and then other things that I just plainly disagreed [with]. I do what I think a director should do, which is stick to your guns on things that are important. No matter who's telling you that you're wrong, you have to stick to your guns, otherwise, you are just reacting. No one wants a director that is just addressing all the notes. Even though the producers do sometimes think they would, they don't. The director has a strong point of view and will fight for his idea of the movie.

Listen, I love Ridley Scott. I think he's a fucking brilliant filmmaker. He still makes mistakes. He's human. If Ridley Scott was giving me notes, I would probably listen to all of them, and then I would figure out which ones are the ones that he's right on.

Álvarez Loves the Practical Process of Filmmaking

ÁLVAREZ: Absolutely. There are different generations and different approaches to certain things. There are a lot of things that directors of that generation might not value that I value. Like the whole animatronic practical effects for them, it's been a nuisance in their life, which I understand now, having done it, why. Because it is really hard. I'm sure, for them, they did it many, many times because they had no options in the '80s and early '90s. As soon as digital was available, they were so happy that they could go in that direction and create a lot more. It opens up so many possibilities. But I think things come around eventually, and my generation and I grew up looking at behind-the-scenes where there were animatronics and real sets. When it's my time to make movies, I want to make them the way I saw people making them when I fell in love with moviemaking.

For them, that wasn't a thing. They grew up with something completely different. I don't know. There was no such thing as behind-the-scenes, I guess. When Ridley was 12, there were no "making of" movies with animatronics. It's a different sensitivity, and they just see things differently. That's the natural order of things.

Related 'Alien' Review: 45 Years After Release, I'm Both Fascinated and Horrified by Ridley Scott's Sci-Fi Classic

Everyone was right: those facehuggers are nightmare fuel.

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One of the reasons why I enjoyed this film so much is the use of practical. If you look at Battlestar Galactica from the '70s, those models and those ships still look better than half the ships being put out today because it's models and miniatures, it's analog, and it just looks great.

ÁLVAREZ: And it ages well when you do it that way. Something that you always try to do is make sure that the movie ages well. A lot of it transcends the discussion of what looks better. A lot of it is just me wanting to go to a place that is real, taking my camera and shooting it in the most exciting possible way, and going through a whole adventure where I witness things that I cannot believe. What I want is to be behind the camera, not even looking at the monitor, just looking at what's happening on that set, and be blown away. That's my passion for storytelling is creating those moments. Look at it and go, "Wow. Look at what's happening in front of me. Look at that creature. Look at that crowd. Look at this set. It's incredible." That's my field. That's what makes me wanna make movies -- to go to these places, work with artists, create these things, see it, and say, "Someone give me a camera," and shoot it. That is the instinct. I don't see the filmmaking process as a means to an end, which is the way a lot of movies get made these days: out of order and green screens, just get what you need, and someone will put it together. "Eventually, it will make sense in the edit after the CG comes in, and we can make a movie. The audience will never know how it was put together." I'm just not interested in that.

Alien: Romulus is now in theaters. Click below for showtimes.

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