Alien: Romulus' menacing first trailer suggests the sci-fi horror series might finally get another great sequel

In space, no one can hear you scream (except your crew mates)

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The first trailer forAlien: Romulushas burst out of the film industry’s metaphorical chest to emerge online – and it suggests we’re in for a hair-raising ride when it debuts in theaters.

Directed by Fede Alvarez (Don’t Breathe,Evil Dead), the seventh movie entry in the sci-fi horror franchise is looking like a particularly frightening experience. Indeed, the trailer for one of 2024’snew moviesmight only be 55 seconds long, but it packs a lot into its all-too-brief runtime.

With its suitably foreboding atmosphere, blood-curling screams, and terrifying pack of hunting facehuggers – was anybody else shouting “nope nope nope” at the screen when they appeared? – too,Alien: Romulusmightfinallygive us another great (and ridiculously overdue)Aliensequel.

Alien: Romulus' plot is largely shrouded in secrecy, but 20th Century Studios – plus the film’s cast and crew – have slowly started to peel back its layers.

For starters, it’s set between 1977’sAlienand 1986’sAliensmovies, a fact that lead star Cailee Spaeny (Priscilla) confirmed toVarietyin November 2023. It’s a standalone tale in the Ridley Scott-developed film franchise, too, so it’ll sit independent of the aforementioned Sigourney Weaver-starring flicks.

20th Century Studios also provided a very vague story synopsis alongsideRomulus' first teaser, which simply reads: “While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonisers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe”. Hey, I did warn you it was pretty nebulous.

Experience #AlienRomulus only in theaters August 16. pic.twitter.com/OZWmHKVPH2March 20, 2024

Aaaand that’s about it, I’m afraid. Aside fromAlien Romulus' key creators – Alvarez is its director and co-writer, while Scott is on board as an executive producer – there’s little else we know about it. Well, apart from its confirmed cast, with Spaeny being joined by Archie Renaux (Shadow and Bone), Isabela Merced (The Last of Usseason 2), Spike Fearn (Aftersun), David Jonsson (Murder Is Easy), and newcomer Aileen Wu.

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Alien: Romuluswill launch exclusively in theaters worldwide on August 16.

When it comes to teasers, less is more

As brief asAlien: Romulus' trailer is, it’s extremely satisfying to see a movie teaser that doesn’t give away everything about its plot.

The entertainment industry’s obsession with showing key story details in film and TV show trailers is frankly ridiculous. Nowadays, too many trailers have runtimes that exceed two and a half minutes, and which practically spoil their narratives. Just look at Universal’s latest trailer for Ryan Gosling’sThe Fall Guy– you can watch it above – which is over three minutes in length, and effectively lays out its entire plot ahead of its May release. The same was true ofMadame Web’s first teaser, which also exceeded three minutes, and saw theSpider-Manspin-off flick’s entire plot spelled out before it made its maligned arrival in theaters in February.

In sharp contrast,Romulus' teaser is just that – a tease of what’s to come. It preserves an air of mystery, choosing instead to demonstrate how it’s hoping to take theAlienfranchise back to roots. With its confined spaceship-set location, the re-appearance of facehuggers, a horror-driven ambience, and a small group of humans fighting for survival against (in this trailer at least) a single xenomorph, it seems like it’ll do just that.

Of course, we’ve been here before withAliensequels –PrometheusandAlien: Covenant’s trailers suggested they could break theAlienmovie curse before they crashed and burned at the box office.Romulus, though, looks like it could crack the code. With anAlienTV show fromFargocreator Noah Hawleyset to debut on FX viaHulu(in the US anyway) in 2025, too, thing’s might be looking up for theAlienfranchise’s future ifRomulusand its TV cousin are successful. Time will tell if they are – but based onRomulus' first teaser, it seems that the Alvarez-directed flick could start to steady the sci-fi horror movie series' ship.

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As TechRadar’s senior entertainment reporter, Tom covers all of the latest movies, TV shows, and streaming service news that you need to know about. You’ll regularly find him writing about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars, Netflix, Prime Video, Disney Plus, and many other topics of interest.

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