The latest “Alien” film — a scary, cinematic addition to one of the most-loved genre franchises in the world — was almost a Hulu-only release. In a new interview, director Fede Álvarez told Variety that the initial direct-to-streaming release plan for “Alien: Romulus,” which is expected to make at least $40 million this weekend at the box office, was “a reaction to theaters being completely gone” during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the outlet, the director initially signed on to make “Alien: Romulus” in 2021, a year before it was announced as a Hulu movie. Back then, you may recall, nothing was making money in theaters since the world was in a pandemic and crowded auditoriums were basically the perfect venue for germ-spreading. By the end of 2021, the tide turned when “Spider-Man: No Way Home” brought audiences back in a massive way. Up until that point, though, streaming seemed like the only viable way for a movie to reach an audience at all. “That decision was not made at the point where theaters were healthy,” Álvarez told Variety. “[But] it was always going to be an ambitious movie for [a streaming] platform.”
Of course, plenty of ambitious movies in the past four years have been relegated to a streaming-only existence, from Pixar’s “Turning Red” to Netflix’s “Fear Street” trilogy to “Prey,” a thrilling and incredible “Predator” sequel film that ended up on Hulu.
Fede Álvarez pitched 20th Century Studios on a theatrical release
“Prey” is an interesting contrast to “Alien: Romulus,” and not just because the two franchises’ central monsters have gone head to head more than once. In an interview with Collider, producer John Davis said that director Dan Trachtenberg had begun developing “Prey” during the filming of “The Predator,” which took place years before the COVID-19 crisis. Yet by the time its release was announced, it had been given the same treatment that “Alien: Romulus” initially got: the straight-to-Hulu release strategy.
Apparently, Álvarez (who is friends with Trachtenberg) pushed for a theatrical release for “Alien: Romulus,” which 20th Century Studios eventually granted. “I remember making an announcement to everybody that this movie was going to [be] in theaters, and there was a big cheer,” he said, indicating that the change came mid-production. “I was like, wow, even the gaffer cares that this goes into theaters!” When the film was first announced, 20th Century Studio president Steve Asbell said that “Alien: Romulus” was greenlit for Hulu “purely off the strength of Fede’s pitch.” As he explained, “It was just a really good story with a bunch of characters you haven’t seen before.”
Based on this anecdote alone, you might think that another high-profile sci-fi/horror entry like “Prey” (the better of the two, if reviews of “Alien: Romulus” are anything to go by) could have made it to theaters after all. Fans of “Prey” have been daydreaming about what life would’ve looked like if it got a theatrical release since the day the movie dropped on Hulu, and all the recent talk of “Alien: Romulus” switching from streaming to theaters is drawing comparisons between the two across social media. Yet it seems likely that “Prey” never could have gotten the theatrical route, no matter how much its creative team pushed. For one thing, the movies weren’t due out at the same time, and “Romulus” was luckily born into a landscape in which people have decided to return to theaters.
Prey couldn’t avoid a streaming-only fate
Plus, as /Film’s Ryan Scott once wrote, a theatrical release for “Prey” could’ve backfired big time for 20th Century Studios. At the time, according to Scott, 20th Century Studios had a streaming deal with Max, meaning that the Disney-owned film could’ve flopped at the box office, then become a hit on a streaming service that lined Warner Bros. Discovery’s pockets instead of its own. At the time, Hulu had also recently announced a plan to release 10 new movies a year, making it a worthy competitor to oversaturated under-deliverer Netflix. “Hulu hasn’t really had … a 20th franchise baby that has come out yet,” Trachtenberg told Uproxx at the time, “so they’re hoping to really ignite the platform to say, ‘We’re not just putting out the smaller, lower-budget fare.’ That [Hulu] is also a place to have giant cinematic experiences.”
Clearly, sometime between 2022 and today, the streamer’s release strategy changed. Or perhaps Álvarez was the exception; Variety notes specifically that “his big thinking led to distributor 20th Century Studios changing course for theaters.” Either way, it’s unambiguously exciting to see movies as massive as this one getting the theatrical treatment again. Maybe one day Hulu will think even bigger, and put its successful pandemic releases in theaters for the first time — starting with “Prey.”