A lot is riding on Alien: Romulus when the movie comes out next month. It’s the first piece of the Alien franchise to come out of Fox since the Disney acquisition, and the studio is likely hoping for a response similar to the recent Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. With an Alien TV series on the way, fans are hoping that the franchise is getting ready for a second life.
The new film is a direct sequel to Ridley Scott’s original Alen, including a focus on the science fiction horror of that original film. Scott himself has seemingly given his stamp of approval to the movie, which can only be good news, especially to co-star David Jonsson, who says Scott a particularly blunt piece of advice for him.
When the Alien: Romulus release date arrives next month viewers will be introduced to David Jonsson as the latest in a long line of iconic android characters in the franchise Considering how important the androids have been in various films, and likely will be in the new movie as well, there’s probably a lot riding on Jonsson’s performance. The actor tells Rolling Stone he was specifically encouraged by Ridley Scott to not suck. The actor explained…
Yeah, he was just like, 'Don't be shit.' Something along the lines of that!"I'm not just saying this, but the studio and Fede and all the team had supreme trust in me, and I kind of needed that.
As pep talks go, I’ve heard better, but David Jonsson seemed to appreciate the words of wisdom from Ridley Scott. He’s also complimentary of the film’s director Fede Alvarez, who he says let him “off the lead” and gave him some freedom to create his character.
Jonsson plays Andy, an android who is a close companion of Rain, the character played by Cailee Spaeny in the Alien: Romulus cast. Together as part of a crew, they will enter a derelict space station only to discover that it has been overrun by the Xenomorphs that the Alien franchise has turned into horror icons. At that point, one assumes most of the cast dies.
Ridley Scott’s involvement, and his positive reception of Alien: Romulus is a big deal because the director doesn’t praise projects lightly. Scott has been blunt that he doesn’t have much love for sequels to his movies that have been made without him, being critical of previous Alien movies as well as admitting that he wishes he'd directed the Blade Runner sequel.
Alien: Romulus is following several recent horror franchises in making a new sequel that circumvents the rest of the franchise, though in this case, Romulus doesn’t, as far as we know, retcon the Alien timeline, as it simply predates the other sequels chronologically.
