Alien: Romulus contains quite a few call-backs to Ridley Scott's original masterpiece and James Cameron's sequel, but it also reintroduces a much-maligned concept from Alien: Resurrection.
Towards the end of the movie, a pregnant and dying Kay injects herself with the Prometheus 5 formula to keep herself alive. This results in her giving birth to a human/alien hybrid.
Named "The Offspring" in the credits, this rather terrifying creature does look a lot better than the albino monstrosity from Resurrection, but taking a page out of one of the least popular movies in the franchise by introducing another hybrid was a choice that not everyone was fully on board with... including the studio!
While speaking to THR, director Fede Alvarez revealed that the studio did initially have some reservations.
"They did [push back] at the beginning [with regard to the Offspring], but not because they didn’t like it. They just thought, 'Is it too much? Do we really have to go there?' And I was like, 'Yeah, now that you said that we shouldn’t, I know that I will.' So that’s exactly what we did here. If you’re given an Alien movie by a corporation that is owned by Disney and they immediately say, 'Yeah, let’s make it,' then you are failing somehow. So we really pushed it to the limit, and I’m glad we did."
Now, @coldesign_ltd (via FearHQ.com) has unveiled an early alternate design for the Offspring, and this is a far cry from the creature that featured in the movie. To be fair, this might look a little too Xeno-like to be truly effective as a human/alien hybrid, but we're sure at least some fans will prefer this take.
"Not a perfect organism, but despite an overreliance on retreading over old ground, Alien: Romulus does mark a thrilling return to form, and is surely destined to be ranked as the third-best Alien movie," we said in our review of Alien: Romulus.
"The sci-fi/horror-thriller takes the phenomenally successful Alien franchise back to its roots: While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe."
The film stars Cailee Spaeny (Priscilla), David Jonsson (Agatha Christie’s Murder is Easy), Archie Renaux (Shadow and Bone), Isabela Merced (The Last of Us), Spike Fearn (Aftersun), and Aileen Wu. Fede Alvarez (Evil Dead, Don’t Breathe) directs from a screenplay he wrote with frequent collaborator Rodo Sayagues (Don’t Breathe 2) based on characters created by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett.
Alien: Romulus is produced by Ridley Scott (Napoleon), who directed the original Alien and produced and directed the series’ entries Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, Michael Pruss (Boston Strangler), and Walter Hill (Alien), with Fede Alvarez, Elizabeth Cantillon (Charlie’s Angels), Brent O’Connor (Bullet Train), and Tom Moran (Unstoppable) serving as executive producers.