Alien: First Look at New Movie Teases the Return of an Iconic Creature

We’ve finally got an update on the upcoming Alien film, which was shared on the official Alien Twitter account earlier today.

In a post for Alien Day — an online event from 20th Century Films sharing reveals and news about the franchise — we got a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the new Alien film from director Fede Alvarez, who previously directed 2013’s Evil Dead and Don’t Breath. In the picture, we see our first look at one of the sets of the film, along with the return of the infamous Facehugger creature, which lays eggs inside their unsuspecting victims to create new xenomorphs.

Happy #alienday everybody!

(via: @fedalvar) pic.twitter.com/uS2kH8TmcQ

— Alien (@AlienAnthology) April 26, 2023

Details on the film are being kept light as of now. However, it will be a stand-alone film unrelated to the previous entries. According to a report from THR from early March, the next Alien film will focus on a younger group of space colonists trapped on a remote station with a xenomorph infestation. The current cast of the film includes Cailee Spaeny (Devs, Bad Times at the El Royale), David Jonsson (Industry, Rye Lane), Spike Fearn (Aftersun, Tell Me Everything), Alieen Wu (Closing Doors), and Archie Renaux (Morbius, Voyagers).

A brand-new story

It should be noted that this film will not continue the story set by Prometheus and Alien Covenant, both of which were directed by Ridley Scott, who also made the original 1979 film starring Sigourney Weaver. While Alien Covenant earned a solid 240+ million at the global box office, it evidently wasn’t enough to continue with a planned third film. So, that particular storyline focusing on the rogue android David (played by Michael Fassbender) will be left unresolved.
In addition to this film, another TV project being developed by Noah Hawley is the works, who created the Fargo anthology series for FX. As the first television series in the Alien universe, this show will be set on future Earth, focusing on how late-stage capitalism has created mass conflict between social classes and how a xenomorph infestation will make things far worse.

Along with the long planned TV project and the upcoming Fede Alvarez film, the Alien franchise has been continuing on in comics and video games. The next video game coming up is Alien: Dark Descent, which will see a squad of colonial marines try to survive against a xenomoprh infestation, which IGN recently previewed after some extended hands-on time with the game.

Alessandro Fillari is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram @afillari.