Fade In
Studio Exec 1: So, what’s your movie idea?
Filmmaker: Here me out, a sequel to Alien, but a prequel to Aliens.
Studio Exec 2: Aren’t people tired of the franchise? I mean, that last one had Danny McBride, for chrissakes!
Filmmaker: No! We’ll just keep a small cast this time of people. But we have to have a brunette woman as the protagonist.
Studio Exec 2: Why a brunette?
: That’s because Sigourney Weaver started it. Winona Ryder in Alien Resurrection, Sanaa Lathan in AVP, Reiko Aylesworth in AVP 2, Noomi Rapace in Prometheus, and Katherine Watersrton in Covenant.
Studio Exec 1: Ok. Ok. We’ll get some actress who’s been in a lot of things, but no one knows who the hell she is.
Filmmaker: Callie Spaeny!
Studio Exec 1: I like it. She played Priscilla Presley and we can bank on that before she asks for a lot of money.
Studio Exec 2: We got to have a black actor. We’ve always had a token black actor in all these movies. Remember Idris Elba was in Prometheus?
Studio Exec 1: Hot damn! He was. And Jussie Smollet was in Covenant.
Studio Exec 2: No wonder it wasn’t memorable. Hey, let’s make him the synthetic android this time.
Filmmaker: Then, it has to be a British actor then. Have you heard of David Jonsson?
Studio Exec 2: Who?
Filmmaker: Exactly. Ok. So, it’s after the events of Alien when a crew has discovered the Nostromo.
Studio Exec 1: Wasn’t that blown to smithereens? I mean, I’ve seen Alien 50 times. It’s gone, nothing left.
Studio Exec 2: And they find the Nostromo but not the shuttle Ripley was in?
Filmmaker: It’s space. It’s vast. So, they find the xenomorph that was blown out the airlock-
Studio Exec 1: Of the shuttle they didn’t find?
Filmmaker: Ok, Ok. So, we’ll have the xenomorph wipe out all the crew of the ship after they reverse bioengineered it.
Studio Exec 1: So they decide to reverse bioengineer something they found frozen in space?
Filmmaker: It happens.
Studio Exec 2: So, who are they this time? Scientist in space who bioengineer xenomorphs? Didn’t they do that in Alien: Resurrection?
Filmmaker: No. No. The main characters were pirates. This one the main characters aren’t scientist either.
Studio Exec 1: What are they?
Filmmaker: Millennials. People in their 20s.
Studio Exec 2: No. That’s Gen Zers. Millennials aren’t that young.
Filmmaker: Anyway. Young 20-somethings that try to leave a planet.
Studio Exec 1: Why are they leaving the planet?
Filmmaker: Because they’re forced to work by the company Weyland-Yutani.
Studio Exec 1: So corporate slavery is legal in the future? Lemme guess, the planet is a dismal Blade Runner like planet.
Filmmaker: Of course. With a lot of dismal stuff. So, they try to leave this planet to go to another planet that is paradise.
Studio Exec 1: Cool, Aliens in Paradise. It’s about time we changed the tone of these movies.
Filmmaker: No. No. They’re still in space and it’s dark and dank and murky. They’re just going to get just far away from the planet to dock with the ship that salvaged the Nostromo. And of course, there’s a malfunction in the ship and they have limited time before it explodes or collides with something – rings of a planet like on Saturn.
Studio Exec 2: How come all these space movies these ships that traveled light years all over the universe always run into problems they could very easily avoid?
Filmmaker: Because the xenomorphs went wild on the ship and destroyed everything.
Studio Exec 2: I don’t know. Maybe we give the other ship a synthetic android. Maybe we can get the actor who played the one in the first one.
Studio Exec 1: Ian Holm?! He passed years ago.
Filmmaker: Maybe we can contact his estate for likeness. We can use it like they did with Carrie Fisher and Peter Cushing in Rogue One.
Studio Exec 2: And be sure to kill off most of the characters to avoid any continuity errors.
Studio Exec 1: Uh, speaking of continuity, didn’t they make it clear in Covenant the xenomorphs were bioengineered themselves as a weapon, so how could they be on Earth in the earlier 2000s if they weren’t engineered until more than a century later?
Studio Exec 2: And even before the 2000s as the queen alien was supposed to be frozen after centuries.
Filmmaker: We won’t worry about that. All human characters die. But not the protagonist. She has to live. I think we should add some images of the facehugger’s penises try to go into the mouths.
Studio Exec 2: I don’t know. The ratings board might not like that.
Filmmaker: Well, we’ll do it where we see the close-up of a guy’s face and another where we see it pull out the girl’s throat. Make it suggestive but not too explicit. I also want to include some props that look like vaginas where the aliens gestate. And I’m going to one-up the C-section scene in Prometheus and have a woman give birth to a huge hybrid creature.
Studio Exec 2: They did that in Alien: Resurrection.
Filmmaker: No. But this time it’s more disgusting with David Cronenberg body horror. It’s like eight-nine feet long. And bald, like a throw-back to the Prometheus engineers.
Studio Exec 1: Let’s chill a little on the Prometheus reference.
Filmmaker: Ok. But I thought about making the android the protagonist’s brother.
Studio Exec 1: What?
Filmmaker: No, it’s cool. It’s kinda slow-witted and tells Dad Jokes because the protagonist’s late father programmed it that way. And then it goes evil and menacing later.
Studio Exec 2: Yes, baby! I like it.
Filmmaker: So, we got a deal!
Studio Exec 1: If we can keep the budget under $100 million. No big name actors just people the audience will get confused over who’s who.
Studio Exec 2: And we can move production overseas to save money. Budapest! That’s a city with locations so we won’t have to build sets and we can exploit labor costs.
Filmmaker: And use practical effects. Christopher Nolan is bringing that all back. So we can wow all the people with practical effects even though the plot doesn’t make a lot of sense and is pedestrian. We’ll put actors in the suits like they did in the old days. And with the low dark lighting, we cheat stuff because the audience won’t be able to see much from time to time.
Studio Exec 1: Get going! What are you going to call this one?
Filmmaker: Alien: Romulus.
Studio Exec 2: Why Romulus? Is that the name of the ship.
Filmmaker: Yeah, I thought we could play on the legend of Romulus and Remus where the orphaned twins were nurtured by a she-wolf and Romulus later founded Rome.
Studio Exec 2: Oh, I get it! Very cerebral.
Studio Exec 1: This is going to make us a lot of money. And now, since we’re owned by Disney we can set it all up for another movie.
Studio Exec 2: Of course, who says eight is enough?!
(They all laugh.)
Fade Out.
Zane Says 