Alien: Romulus was one of those make or break movies for a franchise, if the movie failed it would signal an to Xenomorph shenanigans, however anything like success and we are up and running again. Naturally here at ScaryMinds we were hedging our bets, great first weekend results in most markets, but was it front end load and how would the movie progress over subsequent weekends as the Studio looked to the bottom line.

The reported budget for this one was $80 million, which is quite conservative given Hollywood's excesses and propensity to spend money like someone else is paying the bar bill. Domestic, read North American, returns were $105 million, and counting pocket change. Clearly not enough to see a profit. but hey let's roll those international numbers, which comfortably saw a $245 million return on investment. Okay so let's break this down, $53 million profit from North America, and an additional $82 million return from the International markets. So Romulus made around $135 million for the Studio, which is a decent enough return on investment without blowing anyone's mind. Clearly enough to greenlight a sequel however, which brings us to plans for the sequel.

20th Century Studios has confirmed they are working with Director Fede Alvarez and fellow scribe Rodo Savagues to develop a sequel to Romulus. Bit of a worry there, studio involvement has never been a really good development for the Alien franchise. Anyways Alvarez has confirmed that the sequel will take the Alien franchise unto uncharted waters, which is clear as mud given Romulus playing the franchise's greatest hits. Yes, folks I am a bit cycnical here, and the whole modern audience thing is always a worry. Please note Alvarez has never mention the moderrn thing, but hey new directions right!

There's this weird idea floating around that the story Alvarez and Savagues came up with for Alien: Romulus is not directly connected to the other films in the Alien franchise! Which I guess explains why we get references to every other movie in the franchise, and the movie being set between the events taking place in Alien and Aliens. There's just so much bollocks you can hear before you wonder if Hollywood and their running mates the Access Media have any grasp of reality in the modern age. Seriously, consumers are no where near as stupid as you people think, with the exclusion of TikTok simps of course.

Speaking with Empire magazine, Alvarez stated, "We're excited about where it can go. We've almost checked all the boxes of things that I want to see, and brought back a lot of the things I hadn't seen in a while. Wherever we go now, we can go into uncharted waters. I think it'll be so exciting to go with characters you know from this movie, to a place in the Alien franchise that we've never been before, and to discover things that you've never seen before."

So our interpretation is we are going to get Rain and Andy back from Romulus, one of which would be appreciated and it isn't the human character. Alvarez believes he has an open invitation to do what he likes with the franchise, beware the wraith of the fan dude, you get this wrong and you are going to be hounded by the usual interweb keyboard warriors. I have some serious concerns to be honest.

Fingers crossed we get an original Alien movie, we don't get more Girl Bossing, and the Xenomorph isn't reduced to target pactice, the horror needs to come back. To be honest I would rather have a follow up movie to Covenant, but looks like that ship has sailed and we are in for Alvarez driving the Alien franchise. On the bright side we are getting a television series this year, which looks to be more Girl Bossing! Jesus wept!