“Alien: Romulus” is more or less a bonafide hit for both 20th Century Studios and Disney, earning a solid $350.7 million on a budget reportedly in the range of $80-100 million. Making it the second highest-grossing film in the franchise behind Ridley Scott’s “Prometheus from 2012 and has led most of us to suspect that director Fede Álvarez could come back to make the sequel. 20th Century’s Steve Asbell spoke with The Hollywood Reporter on the state of the studio’s upcoming slate of franchise installments and confirmed to the outlet that they are in active talks with the filmmaker about tackling a sequel.

Of course, there is an expectation that “Alien: Romulus” breakout stars Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson will return to reprise their roles, given the popularity of both Rain and Andy and how the ending would sort of tee up another installment. Something Asbell alludes to while musing about the potential of making a second film with Álvarez.

“We’re working on a sequel idea now,” Asbell told THR about their current plans for the feature film side of the “Alien” franchise. “We haven’t quite closed our deal with Fede [Alvarez], but we are going to, and he has an idea that we’re working on. The two survivors, Rain and Andy, played by Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson, were real highlights of the film. And so I always think of it like, “Wow, where do people want to see them go next?” We know there’s going to be aliens. We know there’s going to be great horror set pieces. But I fell in love with both of them, and I want to see what their story is.”

In that same interview, we also learned that Dan Trachtenberg directed two new “Predator” movies, including “Predator: Badlands,” which will be released on November 7, 2025. You might remember that during the promotional tour for “Alien: Romulus,” Álvarez pitched the idea of co-directing a new “Alien Vs. Predator” movie, aka “AVP 3,” with Trachtenberg.

Asbell said they’d “probably” make another “AVP” movie down the line. But also briefly teased what their approach would be with any new attempt at making a new “AVP” installment, saying, “It wouldn’t be in the way you think. That’s the thing. Not in the way that it will just be called ‘Alien vs. Predator’ or anything like the original movies. If we do this, they’ll be organically created out of these two franchises that we’ve continued with characters that we fall in love with, and those characters will combine…perhaps. But we haven’t gotten to that point. And we’re not just going to bang it out.”

The last two films were contemporary Earthbound stories that stripped away the big sci-fi elements from the comics, video games, and toy lines that made the crossover property popular in the first place. Having the alien, predator, and The Colonial Marines are thrown into an off-world setting to battle it out. We’ve already mentioned some ideas of how the studio could tackle a reboot of the “AVP” franchise and ways to potentially connect it to the new “Alien” and “Predator” movies at the same time.

“Alien: Earth,” the upcoming streaming series, will debut on Hulu/Disney+ sometime in 2025 and should give fans some meaty material before this potential “Romulus” sequel is ready for audiences.

SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER