On the occasion of the trailer having been released, “Alien: Romulus” director Fede Alvarez was interviewed by THR about his upcoming film and mentioned how both James Cameron and Ridley Scott “loved” it. They also gave him plenty of notes.
Alvarez says Scott spent an hour telling him how much he was won over by ‘Romulus.’ (“What can I say? It’s f*cking great!”) … Here’s what Cameron said about the film …
It’s also fascinating because [Cameron and Scott’s] notes and comments are completely different. (Laughs.) They wouldn’t repeat a note. Whatever Ridley said, Cameron said something different. They were all super smart comments, notes and thoughts on the film and the filmmaking, et cetera, but both of them have completely different approaches. So the fantastic part of being able to make this film is to have the chance to work with them.
Of course, Cameron and Scott can’t really say anything bad about ‘Romulus’, so their opinion shouldn’t be taken as any kind of gospel. Then again, if they hadn’t like the film, you’d probably not be hearing anything from them.
As it stands, the best films of the ‘Alien’ franchise are still the first two, respectively, directed by Scott and Cameron. Nothing else comes close to touching them. If I had to pick a third one, I guess I’d go with Scott’s ambitious 2012 spinoff “Prometheus.” The other ones are just not that memorable.
‘Romulus,’ the eighth film in the Alien franchise, was originally slated to be a Hulu release, much like Dan Trachtenberg’s Predator prequel, Prey (2022), but 20th Century quickly changed and mindshifted it to theatrical justy as the film was starting production: “Right when we started shooting it, the studio was like, ‘Fuck it, we’re going into theaters with this,’” Álvarez shares.
Criterion's December lineup has some great additions to the library, but the title that jumped out at me is Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man," which officially joins the Collection on December 8.