Fede Álvarez, who has already made a name for himself in the horror genre by directing the surprisingly good 2013 remake of Evil Dead and the popular Don’t Breathe, has found his next project.
Álvarez has signed on to write and direct a new Alien sequel for 20th Century Studios, which will have original series director Ridley Scott producing.
However, one surprise – and perhaps disappointment for fans – is that the film will be made exclusively for Hulu, with no cinematic release at all. This is part of an ambitious plan for 20th Century to make ten films a year for the Disney-owned platform.
Most would have assumed Alien was too big of a brand to eschew a theatrical release and go straight to streaming, but in a modern Hollywood where streaming platforms are such a huge part of a company’s revenue, studios are sometimes seeing more value at having popular franchises help drive subscribers instead of box office sales.
Little is known about the film right now, but The Hollywood Reporter says that it is not connected to previous films in the franchise. Álvarez reportedly casually pitched a sequel idea to Scott years ago, and Scott remembered and contacted him last year asking if he wanted to do it for real.
20th Century Division President Steve Asbell said the studio greenlit the project purely off of the strength of Álvarez’s pitch, adding “it was just a really good story with a bunch of characters you haven’t seen before. It’s not a film that has to be all things to all people with those gargantuan budgets. They get to be authentically what they are. And this is closer to its genre roots.”
Álvarez’s experience with successfully rebooting Evil Dead surely helped 20th Century Studio’s decision to hire him for this Alien movie, as did Scott remaining on board as a producer.
With the success of 2018’s Halloween legacy sequel, as well as this year’s Scream, we’ll likely see a lot more classic horror franchises get sequels in the next few years. We already saw the recent release of Texas Chainsaw Massacre to Netflix.
We’ll see if this is a new chapter for the Alien franchise, and wait for plot details regarding the film.
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