The casting news continues to drop for Alien: Romulus. Coming to us from The Hollywood Reporter, they’ve confirmed that four more actors have joined the cast: David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Spike Fearn and Aileen Wu. These four join confirmed actors Cailee Spaeny and Isabela Merced. Phoebe Waller-Bridge remains unconfirmed to be playing one of the movie’s android characters.
David Jonsson is mainly a TV actor who has series credits including Industry and Deep State. Archie Renaux Previously acted in the sci-fi film Voyagers and Sony/Marvel’s Morbius. Spike Fearn is also mostly a TV actor with numerous credits but recently had a smaller role in The Batman. Aileen Wu mainly has producer credits, while she acted in one of her short films Closing Doors.
Image courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter. From left to right: Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Spike Fearn, and Aileen Wu
It seems that like we saw with last year’s Predator film ‘Prey,’ Alien: Romulus will feature a mostly younger cast.
While the film was scheduled to begin shooting early last month, we have yet to see any set leaks or official announcements confirming that production has actually started, and news website The Wrap is now reporting that filming will begin on March 9th in six days.
Thanks to Predalien39 and Mike’sMonsters for the news! Keep your browsers locked on Alien vs. Predator Galaxy for the latest Alien: Romulus news! You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube to get the latest on your social media walls. You can also join in with fellow Alien and Predator fans on our forums!
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/rye_lane
I'm such a hopeless optimist
There were a couple of movies where I was really sceptical, but which turned out to be good and I admitted I was wrong. I highly doubt it's gonna happen here, I'm not gonna play "wait and see" game with the franchise that consistently delivered mixed bags at best for almost 4 decades, that's ridiculous, it's hard to find something more incompetent than this.
Also Cameron was extremely smart when he did Aliens, most directors would just copypaste first film, but he knew it's not gonna work if he wanted to reach that impossible level, so he changed the genre, built on the original variables and expanded the universe in the most compelling way possible. If Romulus is another "back to roots" where it's just copypaste of the original and doesn't add anything new/compelling to its lore, but this time with kids, I don't see how it's not gonna be another mixed bag at best, there's nothing going for it.
There are key elements that every fan would expect out of any entry in the franchise, no matter the premise. Whether it's a Prometheus sequel or a Isolation adaptation, there's a pretty common set of base core elements that they look for in any entry.
While it may or may not be the Prometheus/Covenant sequel that some of us do or don't want. I think majority of fans will be happy with a new entry as long as it's competently made and faithful to those core elements of the franchise. Discredit Prey all you want, but that's basically why so many were satisfied with that, in relation to the Predator films.
Exception for those who are just determined to hate a film from the beginning, and probably wouldn't admit it if the film actually does turn out to be good
But what many fans actually wanted for years? Because as far as I'm aware, different sections of fanbase wanted completely different things. One section wants Covenant sequel. The other section wants Prometheus sequel. Other section wants alternate Alien 3/Aliens sequel. Another section wants Alien: Isolation movie adaptation. Another wants another crack at Alien vs Predator. And maybe there's a very small section that wants Alien: Resurrection sequel with Ripley clone. From what we know, Romulus doesn't fit any of those directions.
Exactly. The guy who has most say has a good resume, which tells me to have some faith for now. Until I see any actual film from the movie, I can't judge.
We really don't know much, and just because the cast is young, doesn't mean the movie will be soft or made for the younger audiences. We still know so little about the actual film itself. It literally might deliver what many fans have been wanting for years, visually and plot wise.
From things that I've seen, it seems that it'll hit that mark if the execution is done right.
It's all just a wait and see situation at this moment. And I'm excited for sure.
I did a quick search for headshots of Sigourney in 1978, when they'd be casting for Alien. I doubt many people could see her playing the hardened Ripley from this glamour shot, which is similar to our new spread of actors:
https://i.imgur.com/h8eIMZr.jpg
Yet you throw them on a set with proper direction, wardrobe, propping and lighting and it changes the way a person looks. Here's Sigourney testing for ALIEN:
https://i.imgur.com/URLJlwq.jpg
Sigourney still looks like a baby to me in these photos, even if she is pushing 30. But I'm me, have my own opinions and can be totally wrong in this observation.
But this is coming from someone who films and photographs people as his daily job, so also speaking from experiences.
The amount of times I thought someone was not correct for something until I got them in front of the camera is something I've lost track of.
Not really, that matches up perfectly with my IRL experience with scientists the second you get them away from their niche specialty.
What ? Huh ? Ah ? Wha-
Oh. I get it
Might they be a bunch of young horny Arcturians?
Huh ?
Anyway, why are "colonists" being labeled "dumb-ass" while so-called "scientists" aren't ? Hope this clears that up
That was just for Ridley's own personal use on the shoot!
Sounds like they may be salvagers. So pretty high-brow types within the Alienverse.
Funny, remember back when that Sydney newspaper article was published about the "hundreds" of marijuana plants that Ridley had ordered for the Covenant's hydroponics set?
And we all thought we were getting Space Hippies next.
I've always thought it waa funny that the Space scientists were the dumbest of the lot.
I wonder what occupation the space spring chickens will have? Evidence shows that the more blue collar they are, the more intelligent and relatable they'll be.
Good luck with that, Kradan!
Take it up with Jimbo. Issues with spring-chicken characterizations can be taken up with "I'm no spring chicken" Riddles.
I take issue with that characterization
https://s20.directupload.net/images/230311/8wy9hnu9.gif
Don't watch this movie called ALIENS. I hear it's got kids in it.
I've seen plenty of excited comments about director, streaming release and concept, and generally positive mood with Prey being used as an example of a masterpiece of a film, only a couple of them were just "hopefully this isn't awful!", but when this is the least positive comment you could find besides mine, that usually means positive reactions.
There's nothing of substance to discuss about this one, I said what I wanted to say, at this point I'm only curious if Requiem had the same fan excitement before release.
Do you have anything to actually contribute to the discussion or are you just here to be miserable?
But I'm mostly angry because every single Alien project that had a chance to be finally good without question marks was killed and instead they are doing this and Hoawley's show, or when Fox killed Scott/Cameron/Sigourney's Alien 5 to do Alien vs Predator. This kind of optimism and excitement I see here is incredible considering you could literally die before you see not only a legitimately good movie in this franchise, but even a video-game because it takes almost 4 decades so far to see a single one. Even Star Wars have a lot more bright spots and its toxic fanbase is still mad as hell about the way Disney handles it. Only Jurassic franchise has even worse handling than Alien, with the only positive thing is theatrical release, but Jurassic doesn't have an active fanbase despite lore and stuff, and relies heavily on average Joes who just want to see dinosaurs.
You sure this is still about an Alien movie for you?
But what I'm actually surpised by is that most people here are excited about this kind of Alien follow up. Maybe I haven't seen reactions to other Alien films announcements and people were excited as hell about Requiem too, who knows. But complaining about Blomkamp's Alien and at the same praising this, I don't get it, maybe I'm just confused and this is Alien hate site?
And by the way, Jane Lavy looked older than Cailee Spaeny and Jane looked young, but not this young. Caliee looks like she didn't finish high school yet, the same with Merced. Supporting characters in Evil Dead remake looked older than the rest of Romulus cast too and again, they are consistent with the original Evil Dead.
We're certainly not expecting everyone to be sunshine and rainbows, 100% expecting it to save the franchise or anything. We just don't seem have that extreme pessimistic attitude that you seem to have about it. Especially since, as you've also pointed out, there's potential with Alvarez as director.
And your post in that other forum saying that everyone here is in "full denial mode" because we aren't convinced the film is going to be trash just because of the casting just makes your argument come across extremely condescending and not from a in-good-faith place tbh. Probably just gonna part ways with you on this here.
And why Prey is used here as an example of some incredible masterpiece is beyond me, did our standards fall so low at this point that Predators-level movie (and I thought Predators was better) is now considered a brilliant piece of filmmaking? Being better than Black's Predator is hardly an achievement worth singing about.
Alien wouldn't cost 40 mln today (already discussed in this or different thread), counting only inflation is incorrect way to predict what it would cost today because cost of making films increased significantly since those days, to say the least. Top Gun cost 15 mln in 1986. Top Gun sequel cost 170 mln in 2018-2020. Just a random example. Plus we have Prey from Hulu which supposedly had 65 mln budget and looked like it was made for a third of it at most. If 65 mln budget is incorrect, good. But if it's correct, then 75 mln budget is concerning.
I think you're the one reaching that having a cast of young, teenager-looking actors is a sufficient enough reason to go completely hopeless on this film having any kind of potential. And that having any kind of optimism or even indifference is insane because of this one arbitrary reason.
Especially since horror has always been a genre famous for sparking creativity and quality out of budget limitations. And it's not like $75m is some small amount of money for a film.
Don't really see much point in getting all strung out about the casting either.
With the quality of Prey and everything that Alvarez has done before, everything has me pretty optimistic about this, personally.
I can understand a certain level of cynicism towards big-studio films in todays day and age.
But we don't really have any info on the film that warrants writing it off entirely, by any means.
It seems like there's a subset of people who thrive off of hating something no matter what.
Sometimes restraints are a good thing.
https://i.ibb.co/XsFGhGB/Picsart-23-03-10-18-15-15-781.jpg
The Last Duel under 20th Century Studios/Disney was exceptional. Of course lots and lots of people were crying W0kE!, w0Ke!, WOkE!, #Me-tOo!, #mE-toO!
Probably hasn't even discovered certain Assembly Cut fan threads yet
Eeeh, I'm not sure posting members' comments from other sites is fair play
So how much did Disney execs pay you this time ?
Ooh ooh I think this one's about me!
Yeah, also putting him on ignore now. He's just here to stir up trouble.