Alien: Romulus star confirms the new movie’s timeline, and sends plot speculation into overdrive

Hype for Fede Alvarez's Alien movie is pretty colossal with Ridley Scott already giving it high praise. Now, we finally know when it sits on the franchise’s timeline, and it’s got us speculating what this might mean for the plot of Alien: Romulus.

Cailee Spaeny, who is set to lead the new movie, gave Variety the details, confirming it takes place between Alien and Aliens. "It’s supposed to slot in between the first movie and the second movie," she said. "They brought the same team from Aliens, the James Cameron film. The same people who built those xenomorphs actually came on and built ours. So getting to see the original design with the original people who have been working on these films for 45-plus years and has been so much of their life has been really incredible."

The first film in the franchise, Scott’s Alien was released in 1979 and takes place in 2122. It follows the crew of Nostromo who find themselves face-to-face with a xenomorph. Ripley (played by Sigourney Weaver), is the sole survivor of the incident and we next meet her 57 years later in James Cameron’s Aliens (1986) when she’s rescued from deep space.

The fact that Alien: Romulus takes place between these two movies and draws upon the xenomorphs from Cameron’s sequel has got fans speculating. This is especially true as we know very little about the plot of the new movie, which is billed as a standalone entry and stars Isabela Merced, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Spike Fearn, and Aileen Wu, alongside Spaeny.

"Makes one wonder if it's a prequel to Aliens," one Redditor speculated. "Why else use the exact same xenomorph design from Aliens when all the other films in the franchise have their own unique design?" Meanwhile, another suggested it could take place in Hadley’s Hope, the research colony that first appeared in Aliens. "I know it won't but I hope it has some nods to Alien: Isolation since it's during that same time frame," a third wrote.

This time frame certainly does open up a wealth of possibilities, but all we know so far from the first look is that it will feature face-huggers and an airlock interior.

Alien: Romulus will be released in theaters on August 16, 2024. For more upcoming movies, check out our list of 2023 movie release dates.