Alien is returning, and the cast has gained a gaggle of fresh faces.
Fede Alvarez’s as yet untitled Alien will begin production on March 9th in Budapest, and The Hollywood Reporter broke the story about a host of new actors joining the space crew. David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Spike Fearn, and Aileen Wu are all entering the upcoming 20th Century Studios production.
The new actors are joining the previously announced Isabela Merced and Cailee Spaeny; the latter will lead this new take on the Xenomorph-centered action horror. Spaeny is best known for her work on Mare of Easttown and The Craft: Legacy and is fresh off her role as Priscilla Presley in Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla.
David Jonsson recently starred in Industry and will be seen next in Searchlight’s rom-com Rye Lane. Archie Renaux starred in Shadow and Bone, and Spike Fearn had one stellar 2022 with Aftersun and The Batman. Aileen Wu is a relative newcomer in the industry, with Alien being her most prominent role to date.
While plot details are still under wraps, this new Alien entry will take a new approach. Instead of focusing on the science or military angle like previous entries, the ninth Alien movie will follow a group of young people. THR notes that the logline reads, “on a distant colony, the group finds themselves in a fight for their lives with the titular alien, a creature known as a Xenomorph, whose race propagates by implanting eggs into people’s chest via little facehuggers eventually violently bursting out of the chest.”
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Fede Alvarez will direct the film, which he wrote with frequent collaborator Rodo Sayagues. Ridley Scott, who directed the original Alien and the series’ entries Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, will produce via his Scott Free banner and the company’s Michael Pruss.
Originally published March 4, 2023. Updated March 5, 2023.
