Romulus, written and directed by Fede Álvarez, became the second-highest-grossing film in the Alien franchise, and not long after its summer premiere, a sequel was announced, which we’ve been referring to as Romulus 2 for lack of a better name. However, producer Michael Pruss revealed at the Saturn Awards that it’s not set in stone that Álvarez’s new Alien film will continue the story of Romulus.
The producer mentioned that he’s involved in the development with Ridley Scott and Fede Álvarez, but they’re still very early in the process. "We’re working on ideas for the new Alien film, which might not be a direct continuation of Romulus, but it will definitely be part of the known franchise. What we’re doing now, I like to say, is that we’re sitting at the table drinking water. We’re discussing ideas. Good movies take time, I was just working on Gladiator 2, and that sequel took 25 years to come together. We need the right time to examine ideas and figure out if it’s worth pushing those ideas forward. Sometimes yes, sometimes no, you just have to find the best idea."
Pruss promises that we won’t have to wait 25 years for a Romulus sequel, and that they might announce specifics this year. "We’re not there yet, right now, we’re just trying to come up with something great with Fede and Ridley that can elicit the same honest reaction. It was worth the wait for Romulus, wasn’t it? People loved it, accepted it, and that took time. But we want to come up with something great."
Romulus was originally a spinoff: the story takes place between Ridley Scott's first Alien film, Alien: The Eighth Passenger, and James Cameron’s second film, Aliens, but it only loosely connects to the plots of the classics. The sci-fi horror film earned $350 million worldwide, which (nominally) is only surpassed by the 2012 Prometheus ($402.4 million) in the series. Due to the much-discussed "changed media consumption habits" and inflation, the results of the first films are not directly comparable, but compared to Scott’s 2017 Covenant (which earned $238.5 million globally), Romulus was a bigger success not only financially but also critically.
