Alien: Romulus sequel not cancelled, 20th Century Studios boss insists

Bit of a back-and-forth week for Alien fans, with all sorts of rumours swirling around the supposed fate of a sequel to Alien: Romulus. If you blinked, you might've missed a short-lived social media panic: word got out that the next film was a goner—shattered dreams, again. Except, as it turns out, the truth's not quite so dramatic.

To shut things down, 20th Century Studios boss Steve Asbell simply retweeted a (now-deleted) rumour about the sequel being cancelled with a terse 'nope'.

Is the sequel really happening?

All this fuss originated from a story on World of Reel, which basically claimed that 20th Century was scrapping the direct Romulus follow-up. The suggestion was that they'd waded into all sorts of behind-the-scenes headaches, and that instead, a totally separate Alien film was going to be fast-tracked with Whalefall's Brian Duffield in the director's chair. Cue panic. Turns out, at least for now, the studio's not ready to walk away from the continuity set up in Romulus. Still, it's not exactly smooth sailing—particularly when it comes to wrangling the returning cast.

The cast conundrum

Alien: Romulus did surprisingly well at the box office, raking in a tidy $350 million on a relatively lean $80 million budget. Credit where it's due: director Fede Álvarez went with a cast of lesser-knowns rather than expensive A-listers, which might've kept costs sensible. That tactic cut both ways; now, the film's two stars—Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson—aren't so unknown anymore. In fact, they're now two of Hollywood's most in-demand faces.

• Spaeny has been on a bit of a tear with Civil War and Wake Up Dead Man (not exactly flops), and if the usual rumour mill is to be believed, she could soon be taking the role of Rogue in the looming X-Men reboot.
• Jonsson, meanwhile, has been officially announced as the headline star for Black Panther 3—a bit of Marvel musical chairs, confirmed on stage at Comic-Con last week.

Alien: Romulus landed a $350 million global box office from an $80 million budget.

In short, the two leads were a bargain when cast, but getting them back could be a nightmare if their shooting schedules start clashing with Marvel’s vast media machine.

Creative squabbles and xenomorph future

The report on creative drama is especially eyebrow-raising: supposedly, there were 'differences' between Fede Álvarez and legendary producer Ridley Scott. One of the main sources of friction? Álvarez's desire to bring back Michael Fassbender's 'David' from Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, a move Scott was apparently less enthusiastic about. Either way, if Álvarez has exited the sequel, that's probably at the heart of it.

Yet the wider Alien universe isn’t exactly sitting still. The streaming series Alien: Earth is heading into its second season soon, so anyone itching for xenomorph action isn’t going to go hungry, even if the next film takes its sweet time arriving.