‘He’s really tough’: The director of an iconic sci-fi horror saga’s Disney-branded reboot sought approval from its famously grumpy architect

The notion of Disney backing the latest reboot of a legendary sci-fi horror franchise largely defined by blood, gore, and spine-tingling scares worries a lot of people, but based on how incredibly well it worked out for Predator prequel Prey, who’s to say lightning won’t strike twice when it comes to Alien?

The Mouse House is doubling down on the Xenomorphs, with Fede Álvarez’s feature film that may or may not be subtitled Romulus set to hit theaters next year, while Noah Hawley is working away on a TV series that also doubles as the long-running saga’s first ever project set on Earth if you wisely choose to exclude the dismal Alien vs. Predator crossovers from the equation.

Alarm bells started ringing when rumored plot details made it sound an awful lot like a teen slasher, but in a conversation with Guillermo del Toro at the recent Directors Guild of America Latino Summit, Alvarez revealed he went out of his way to seek approval from one of cinema’s most famous curmudgeons.

“I finished the Director’s Cut a week ago and had to go through the incredible tense process of obviously sending to Ridley. I wanted him to see it before anybody. And everyone gave me the head’s up that Ridley is really tough. He’s really tough, particularly if it has something to do with his movies. He was really tough on Blade Runner, which I thought was a masterpiece, and he had issues with it because it’s really hard for him because it’s his work.

So I was like “there’s no way I win this one.” Even if he didn’t ask for it, I was gonna go there and sit at a table and look at him and get it. Even if he was gonna say “you destroyed my legacy,” I wanted to be in front of him and see him in the eye. I didn’t want to get an email where it says “Ridley says…”

I was like I wanna see him, if you’ll see me, I want to talk to him right after. I drove there. I see his executives, which couldn’t see it with him, because he wanted to watch it on his own. Because it was Alien. It was very important to him. He didn’t want to have anybody in the room. That makes me even more terrified while I’m waiting.

And then he walks into the room and he did say “Fede, what can I say? It’s f*cking great.” For me it was like…ahhh…My family knows it was one of the best moments of my life to have a master like him, which I admired so much, to even watch a movie I made but particularly something like this…and talk to me for an hour about what he liked about it.”

Based on his frank responses and opinions to a lot of things, if Ridley Scott didn’t care for Alvarez’s vision, then he’d have told him to his face. That instills a little more confidence, but there arguably hasn’t been a truly great Alien movie in almost 40 years, so there’s still a long way to go to win over the doubters.