At San Diego Comic-Con today, the cast and director of Alien: Romulus joined a Hall H full of fans for a panel celebrating the upcoming film. And that panel included a never-before-seen extended trailer that was absolutely brimming with facehuggers.
The extended trailer, which played in Hall H, was several minutes long and included quite a bit of new footage, but it hasn't yet been released publicly at the time this was writing. Our colleague in Hall H described it for us, saying that while it starts out with some familiar trailer footage, it includes more establishing shots of characters and quickly pivots to a facehugger jamboree. At one point, a wall pulses and you can see a facehugger, followed by tons of them on display, as if being studied.
As action intensifies, we see three characters in a partially-flooded room with tons of facehuggers. Andy, the synthetic, has something wrong with him, so Rain hands the device over for them to reboot him. But while he's rebooting, facehuggers get loose. One character throws a facehugger by its tail, but more are beginning to wake up, come off the wall, and swim through the flooded room toward them. The group eventually makes it out of the room and tries to close the door, but tons of facehuggers manage to make it through, and one ultimately latches onto Navarro.
We don't have the full footage to share with you, but IGN did get the coolest portion of this footage today to show off at SDCC:
Later in the panel, the group showed some bonus footage that was specifically clipped to avoid spoilers. They showed the set-up for one of the trailer scenes, where Navarro has the facehugger inside and looks ill before saying "I just need to get away from this airlock." She then scans herself, sees the creature inside, and begins convulsing. While Kay holds Navarro, the facehugger tears her chest open, but as Kay screams their ship crashes into another one. The final shot shows the alien still in her chest, emerging and screeching as it tries to escape.
During the panel, the actors chatted about how almost all of the effects in the film are practical. In the scene we just described, Isabela Merced (Kay) pointed out that even though only two actors are visible in the scene, there are tons of people working on it, including nine people working on the alien itself. At another point in the panel, director Fede Alvarez noted that Spike Fearn (Bjorn) had to say “There’s something in the fucking water” "like 200 times" because it took a long time to get the practical effect of the facehugger jumping out exactly right.
Finally, at the end of the panel, we were treated to one more clip: Kay wakes up on the floor. It's quiet, and no one's around. She goes down a ladder. Lights are flashing, and she's walking slowly, carefully. Machinery makes loud noise in a brief jumpscare. Kay then finds some shed alien skin. She looks up and sees alien goop dripping above her, then backs into someone. He then picks up a tool that makes loud shocks and uses it against the cocoon hanging above them, screaming as he does so. Alien blood pours out. Suddenly, they're attacked. The trailer concludes with us seeing the alien shedding its next layer of skin, with Kay running away but falling down a hatch as the alien rises above her.
For fans who didn't manage to make it into Hall H, this wasn't the only Alien news coming out of this week: a prelude one-shot comic from Marvel Comes was also announced two days ago. It's coming out this October.
Just announced: #AlienRomulus is getting a prelude one-shot comic from Marvel Comics this October. pic.twitter.com/Rre3Yef9Fr
— Alien: Romulus (@AlienAnthology) July 24, 2024
Alien: Romulus is the seventh installment of Alien films, but the second chronologically. It takes place between the first Alien films (1979) and Aliens (1986). Like other Alien films, it involves a group of space travelers who encounter, well, the alien, and must survive and escape. During today's panel, director Fede Alvarez reassured attendees that they could enjoy Alien: Romulus even if they were unfamiliar with the series. The film will star Cailee Spaeny as Rain Carradine, David Jonsson as Andy, Archie Renaux as Tyler, Isabela Merced as Kay, Spike Fearn as Bjorn, and Aileen Wu as Navarro.
And yes, theatergoers, Alien: Romulus is getting a wacky popcorn bucket to celebrate. We don't have to wait long, as the film is out on August 16, 2024.
You can catch up on everything announced at SDCC 2024 right here.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to [email protected].