Email Newsletters RSS Feeds Contests and Rules Contact Us Careers at WDIV Closed Captioning / Audio Description Public File Current EEO Report Terms of Use Privacy Policy Do Not Sell My Info FCC Applications Copyright © 2025 ClickOnDetroit.com is managed by Graham Digital and published by Graham Media Group (WXYZ) — Sheetz has broken ground on a second location in Romulus and a third location in metro Detroit This location on Romulus will be located at 29225 Smith Rd. just off of Middlebelt north of I-94 near Detroit Metro Airport Watch below: Sheetz plans to replace Sacred Heart Church Sheetz opened its first Detroit-area location at 33380 Wick Rd. they broke ground on a location in Chesterfield Township It's part of a plan to bring 50-60 locations in Southeast Michigan over the next five to six years and more than a dozen groundbreaking scheduled later this year and into 2026 Watch below: Lawsuit hopes to halt plans to bring a Sheetz gas station to Roseville “We couldn’t be more excited to break ground on our second Romulus location,” President and CEO Travis Sheetz said in a statement “Since opening our first store last August the response from the community has been incredible—from the energy in the store to the conversations we’ve had with customers and city leaders It’s clear that Romulus residents are hungry for more options and we’re proud to deliver with another location that brings our signature Made-to-Order food and commitment to top-notch service even closer to them This location will be 6,000 square feet and have eight fueling islands for vehicles There will be no fueling options for semis Posted in: Collectibles, NECA | Tagged: Alien: Romulus, NECA A new Alien: Romulus action figure is on the way from NECA as they debut their new Deluxe Suspended Lab Xenomorph Alien: Romulus returned the franchise to its terrifying roots blending sci-fi horror with claustrophobic dread Set between the events of Alien and Aliens the film follows a young crew of scavengers who stumble upon a derelict Weyland-Yutani research vessel adrift near a remote colony acquiring their starship pods to travel to a new star system and get away from the harsh planet below they find blood-smeared walls and the aftermath of an unspeakable slaughter The previous crew had seemingly unleashed the XX121 Xenomorph with its acid blood having it suspended from the floor above comes the return of the famous Xenomorph that started it all After a brutal battle against the Weyland-Yutani security forces the alien hangs suspended in the ceiling of the ship's lab when its acid blood burns a hole through the floor… the very blood that gave scientists access to the DNA of the ultimate killing machine." "This deluxe figure from NECA features posable wires to hang the maimed Xenomorph and includes a display piece of the acid-burned lab ceiling designed for mounting on your wall or ceiling The figure also features an articulated jaw Packaged in a clear collectors' display box it's sure to be the centerpiece of your Alien: Romulus collection!" As any fan of horror films—or cinema in general really—I’ve got a huge amount of love for Ridley Scott’s original Alien movie I struggle to think of many other ‘genre films’ that are more universally adored than the 1979 sci-fi horror masterpiece I certainly don’t know anyone personally and can’t think of anyone professionally off the top of my head who doesn’t admire what Scott and his team managed to pull off almost half a century ago Alien is in many ways—like its titular creature—the perfect creation a part of me kept hoping that it might be just good enough to satisfy the Giger-flavored craving and devoid of personality almost as much as its zero-dimensional characters it managed to be fail in almost every way that Scott’s Alien succeeds David Jonsson infused his android with what personality he could Writing about it now, I feel my stress levels begin to rise to unhealthy levels, so I’m going to hand over to Ryan George and his Pitch Meeting series to illustrate just a few ways that Alien: Romulus managed to be even worse than expected: This essay is part of a Public Books capsule by Eleanor Johnson on feminism and horror Oh, Alien franchise. How I love you, and how bad you treat me sometimes I’m going to do something I rarely do. I’m going to review a movie I hated. It pains me to do this, but do it I must: because this film is terrible in ways that are important for the history of horror and for contemporary feminism let me list the not important things about Alien: Romulus that don’t work these aren’t even the most important ways the film pissed me off The most important thing about the original Alien film both from the standpoint of film history and from the standpoint of the history of American feminism predatory rape and forceful impregnation as something that could—and did—happen to men every bit as readily as it could happen to women And so does literally everyone who’s ever seen the original film because he was a man who got raped and then died “giving birth” to his alien offspring The Alien franchise is about rape and forcible reproduction That focus was totally clocked by James Cameron but does things with the rape and forced reproduction dynamics that don’t make any sense at all and totally dilute the reproductive-rights rigor of the original two films one of the teen heroes is a woman named Kay (Isabela Merced) I leaned forward: This could be interesting When the group of kids dock on the derelict spaceship that they’re planning to hijack—in order to get away from their wage-enslaving and eco-ravaged homeworld—they pretty soon discover a whole bunch of alien larvae: the “face-huggers” from prior films Navarro (Aileen Wu) is the first to get impregnated—because people call these scenes “chest-burster” scenes but if you go back and look at Kane’s death the alien emerges from his belly—it doesn’t crack through his rib cage because it keeps the iconographic meaning of Kane’s death in the realm of pregnancy and parturition Because we’re in the era of post-Dobbs horror—and I mean “horror” both in reference to the film industry and about the actual lived experience of women seeking medical care for reproduction-related states Given that we are living in an era of vitriolic and panicked contestation about women’s reproductive rights why on earth or any other planet would you make a film that decenters questions about forcible pregnancy and termination the film does appear to address pregnancy termination head-on Bjorn (Spike Fearn) attempts to kill the growing alien baby while it’s in a pupal state He finds it inside what appears to be a massive (This visual is a direct rip-off of the scene from Species (1995) where Sil transitions from being a little girl to a full-grown woman.) So we’re looking at a big oriented vertically and complete with labia Mean little Bjorn takes a long electric prod—shaped like a phallus—and he shoves it into the vulva But I’m going to say this: If this is Romulus’s best effort to showcase the importance of reproductive freedoms I don’t want to see a male character shoving a phallic probe directly into a giant vulva; I venture to say that you also don’t want to see that Nor do I want to see that gigantic vulva then leak acidic vaginal secretions all over the place—almost as if the vulva is now excited by its rape Someone in editorial should have thrown a red flag on this whole scene They botched the alien birth from Navarro’s body They introduced an interspecies rape scene they would do something interesting with Kay’s pregnancy Kay injects herself with this non-Newtonian alien blood DNA extract serum goop (it’s really not explained well) to try to save herself and her baby and causing the fetus to be born as—you guessed it!—a half-human Kay quickly discovers that her breasts are leaking a mucus-like black and clear fluid; this is what non-Newtonian nursing looks like (The black fluid breast milk thing is a pretty clear shout-out to Julia Ducournau’s infinitely superior film Titane also about a hybrid pregnancy that results in the leakage of black fluid from the mother’s body.) So the alien suckles her to death So now we’ve got three dead young people of color (Navarro a severely compromised Black “synthetic” (Andy) and an entirely unscathed white girl (Rain) though it’s clear Andy will die when they exit Weyland-Yutani airspace because he will become decommissioned automatically “I will fix you,” says Rain to him at the end when she has reprogrammed Andy so that his prime directive is no longer “do what’s best for Rain,” but instead Why not reprogram him to “do what’s best for Andy” This is where the film could have done something really interesting with AI ethics Since he has no choice but to follow his prime directive that would have forced him to become an independently willing being not attached to his white “sister” at the hip upgraded a tiny bit from servant to caregiver So off they rocket for a nine-year hypersleep A vacation planet where the young Black character will most likely die—sorry I find this an astonishing place for the film to end Why make Navarro’s death not read as a fatal birth Why make Kay’s pregnancy turn catastrophic only because of some non-Newtonian glop she mainlined It’s crazy to me that a franchise that’s been centrally concerned with rape and forced pregnancy would abdicate that focus in the post-Dobbs era It’s not as if Hollywood broadly is turning a blind eye to using body horror as a way of exploring what it is to live in the post-Dobbs world as a woman Other horror films have taken on the mantle of anti-Dobbs horror and worn it proudly and with rage: Look at Immaculate in which Sydney Sweeney is raped and forced to carry a pregnancy she never wanted Look at the surprisingly excellent film The First Omen in which Nell Tiger Free is also raped and constrained to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term; her delivery introduces Damien—the anti-Christ—into the world leading viewers to think the film is going to charge headlong at Rome-style patriarchy and make some kind of allegory about American sexual politics The only answer I have come up with is this: This film is primarily concerned with its aesthetics That’s why the interstellar visuals are so beautiful; that’s why the alien body structures are so meticulously maintained throughout (something not true in Alien Resurrection); that’s why the weaponry looks so true to the original film the latest Alien film needed to do more than look good It needed to do what Alien did in 1979: Give Americans the opportunity to think about what the world would look like if men—and not just women—could be raped Subscribe to RSS The courthouse transformed its traditional setting into an interactive learning environment. Judges and court staff hosted the fourth annual Community Day. There was a special focus on engaging young minds through education and positive interaction with legal professionals. “Many young adults grow up thinking that legal and law enforcement aspects are all negative. That’s not what it’s all about,” said Avery Taylor, Director of Community Engagement and Probation Officer for the 34th District Court. The event marks the court’s fourth year organizing Community Day activities. This year featured a groundbreaking addition—a Community Day Quiz Bowl sponsored by Feiger Law, in which teams from various Metro Detroit schools competed in answering questions about civics and American history. “The questions cover the constitution, the bill of rights, and the branches of government,” says Michael Russell from Feiger Law. “These are foundational concepts that help young people develop a good understanding of the law going forward.” Judge Teresa Patton emphasizes the importance of early exposure to the legal system. “First, we don’t want them to be scared of this building,” said Patton. “Second, we serve as an example that we are everyday people. This is a place of service, not a place of sitting above others.” Patton, who identifies herself as a mom, wife, community member, and football coach, believes these interactions could inspire future legal professionals. “These are our future lawyers, judges, court administrators, and probation officers,” Patton said. The inaugural quiz bowl proved highly successful, with Edgemont Elementary School claiming first place and Barth Elementary in Romulus securing second place. For many participants, it marked their first visit to a courthouse and direct interaction with legal professionals. “I learned that there’s a lot of different rooms, and all of the judges are really nice,” shared student Sophia Jones, reflecting the positive impressions the program left on young participants. Following the success of this year’s event, court staff and sponsors have committed to making the quiz bowl an annual feature of Community Day, ensuring continued engagement between the legal community and local youth. Copyright 2025 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit - All rights reserved. Demond Fernandez joined the Local 4 News team in 2023, anchoring our 5:30 p.m. newscast and reporting on important stories impacting our community. He joined WDIV from WFAA in Dallas where he was a senior reporter focusing southern Dallas communities. Click here to take a moment and familiarize yourself with our Community Guidelines TV Listings ROMULUS, Mich. – A 44-year-old woman from Romulus was killed Thursday morning while walking to work. It happened at about 5 a.m., April 10, near Wayne Road and Michelle Drive. Police said the woman was crossing Wayne Road, just north of a flashing yellow traffic signal when she was struck by a northbound vehicle driven by a 26-year-old woman from Belleville. Police said the driver, who had her family with her, immediately stopped and has been cooperating with the investigation. Wayne Road was closed for several hours before reopening at about 8:30 a.m. Dane Kelly is an Oreo enthusiast and producer who has spent the last seven years covering Michigan news and stories. DNA recovered from a 13,000-year-old tooth and a 72,000-year-old skull is what propelled scientists at Colossal to bring back the dire wolf The creatures, who have regularly appeared in pop culture as mythical animals, are most famously featured in "Game of Thrones" and George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire"  fantasy novels that the show is based upon Fans of the series will remember that dire wolves are the sigil of House Stark and a litter of abandoned pups becomes loyal companions to Stark children in the storyline But dire wolves are real-world predators that once roamed North America before going extinct about 13,000 years ago. The animals are larger than modern-day gray wolves with a wider head and snout and larger jaws and teeth If you want more details on just how Colossal pulled off the feat, we've got you covered here But if you're just looking for some photos of the fluffy predators Dire wolves: Dire wolf returns from extinction? Company reveals 'magic' it's using to bring back species Terrell Valentino Flake was bound over for trial in connection with allegedly setting an apartment building and a truck on fire over a jealous fit about his ex-girlfriend He was also bound over for a felony domestic violence third offense Flake offered to help his ex-girlfriend move into her new apartment in Warren Flake allegedly demanded several times that she get back together with him The ex-girlfriend refused to get back together and asked Flake to leave or she would call the police Flake allegedly responded by becoming physically violent putting her in a headlock and slamming her to the ground to take her cell phone away The ex-girlfriend was able to escape and called the police Flake texted the ex-girlfriend with a picture of a truck from Sam & Mary Trucking LLC parked in the apartment complex Flake’s text indicated that he believed the driver of the truck from Sam & Mary Trucking LLC was having an affair with the ex-girlfriend I’m looking up the company on that truck I’ll go see that punk ass #$%^* tomorrow it is alleged that Flake came to the apartment complex and witnesses observed him near the truck shortly before it burst into flames Witnesses later saw Flake set the apartment building on fire Count 1: First-degree arson for setting the apartment building on fire a felony punishable by up to life or any term of years the preliminary exam for Flake was held in 37th Warren District Court Macomb County Assistant Prosecutor Maria Panchenko conducted the exam a judge determined that there was enough evidence to proceed with a trial on all three charges His next court date is in the Macomb County Circuit Court The Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office encourages anyone experiencing domestic violence to contact their local police department or the non-profit organization Turning Point Tuning Point helps victims of domestic violence by offering a community advocacy housing program The organization has a 24-hour hotline and an emergency shelter available by calling (586) 463-6990 It is important for the citizens of Macomb County to understand that they are never alone and that trained professionals and resources are always available to help The Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office encourages people to visit their website to obtain more information on available assistance. Brandon Carr is a digital content producer for ClickOnDetroit and has been with WDIV Local 4 since November 2021. Brandon is the 2015 Solomon Kinloch Humanitarian award recipient for Community Service. Director Fede Alvarez spoke to Empire about fixing the controversial CGI of Rook in Alien: Romulus but one crucial element bothered a lot of people: Ian Holm's return 'thanks' to a combination of puppetry and CGI "We just ran out of time in post-production to get it right," director Fede Álvarez said during a new interview with Empire "I wasn't 100 percent happy with some of the shots where you could feel a bit more the CG intervention I don't blame them." The filmmaker's previous big-screen work included 2013's fantastic 'Evil Dead' remake and the low-budget horror-thriller 'Don't Breathe' Romulus felt like a labor of old-school love through and through except for the aforementioned sequences so it's not entirely surprising to see him admitting something was off about them Álvarez convinced the powers that be to return to post-production after the movie's cinematic release to rework some of the visuals before the domestic launch We made it better for the release right now I convinced the studio we need to spend the money and make sure we give the companies that were involved in making it the proper time to finish it and do it right He also confirmed that the whole character was a mix of traditional puppetry and digital techniques that have become more prevalent in recent times with the updated version of the movie leaning more toward the practical approach Fascinating… streaming versions of Alien: Romulus have apparently made some tweaks to certain shots of Rook VFX (via Reddit) pic.twitter.com/XMEY6iT7QGJanuary 10, 2025 It's not 100% clear if "home release" just means the Blu-ray and DVD versions of 'Alien Romulus' or if the streaming versions will be updated too Alien Romulus landed on Hulu in the US back in November and it's releasing on Disney+ in the UK today Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com. For Star Wars Day, May the 4th, you'll have to use all your Jedi powers to grab this Lego set — Jango Fett's Starship WILL sell out fast Get everybody's favorite droid at its lowest-ever price for Star Wars Day! What would it be like living on Tatooine from 'Star Wars'? This exoplanet orbiting twin suns could tell us and its box office success has already spawned a sequel But there’s one part of the movie that was universally panned: the Ian Holm CGI However, director Fede Alvarez “fixed” the Ian Holm CGI for the Alien: Romulus home release. In an interview with Empire he admitted: “We just ran out of time in post-production to get it right I wasn’t 100% happy with some of the shots the home release Ian Holm leans more into puppet work than CGI they’re having their say on this new and improved Ian Holm and some are still questioning the need for Holm’s return in the first place “Better, but still awfully uncanny… and for no sound reason,” said Kwtwo1983 in a thread on reddit “Should’ve messed his face up much more,” added thelastcupoftea “It looked awful in theaters and it looked awful when I rewatched it on Blu-ray.” “Still such a needless and distracting part of the movie…” commented Smug_amoeba “Both look bad and one is a bit darker lol,” said Worried_Bowl_9489 What’s clear from the comparison is that the home release pulls the shot of Ian Holm so viewers see more of the practical puppet Alvarez mentioned it's still awful and garish to resurrect a dead man so needlessly,” TheUrPigeon commented “They can only improve upon it so much because the initial effort was so poor.” Still, Alien Romulus revitalized the franchise when it debuted this past summer, with an impressive $350 million at the global box office. And in October, 20th Century Studios said it was working on an idea for Alien: Romulus 2 that would continue the story of the first movie, with Fede Alvarez potentially returning to direct. Photo by Stanley Bielecki Movie Collection/Getty Images. Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me. but generally I wish they'd just gone for a lookalike or a 'brother' model with a new actor I overall enjoyed this film as probably the best Alien sequel since Aliens It would almost certainly be higher on my list if it wasn't for that egregious mess Ian Holm was brilliant and the character equally so but bringing Ash back felt like a spit in his face and a cheap way to excite watchers It also made half the cast dumb by giving him everything to do as the 'man in the chair' until his predictable twist no need to go full memberberries by using Ian Holm It's as if they were afraid the movie wouldn't be successful unless they just kept referencing the first Alien The man’s guts are hanging out for lack of a bottom half of his body All in all it's still ranked 3rd in my Alien franchise ranking below the first 2 but better than any other sequel/ prequel Considering the guy is dead it looks pretty good to me honestly Now fix the cringe-inducing Aliens callback near the end of the film and it’ll be nearly perfect Unpopular opinion but I thought Prometheus and Covenant were better than this movie I also can't tell if they what they changed besides adding more shadow to his face I think its quite realistic that it looks almost animatronic I watched it thinking 'Huh that de-aging isn't too bad.' Cause I thought Email Holmes was still alive I thought the character and performance worked really well so didn't care that it looked a little odd given he was a disembodied head (and shoulders) that would look odd even if it was 'real') He’s an android so it shouldn’t be perfect The problem is giving this CGI character so much screen time Should have given him one cool scene where his face is mostly bashed up and you see a name tag and hear his voice props to the director for referencing Prometheus and Engineers that story line is good and its sad we didnt get a conclusion People are just going to have to come to grips that cgi faces will always look fake they could have helped themselves by keeping it more in the distance and muddying it up If the head was a little damaged and covered in white goop but they asked his family's permission and likely paid them And it narratively makes sense that the same model of android in the first film would be on that station And there's the instant menace and threat he brings which wouldn't be present if it were any other android It was definitely bad but it didnt ruin the movie for me Liked his Evil Dead Reboot a decade ago too It would have been better had they brought back Michael Fassbender as a version of David/Walter I understand Why they brought him back (continuity and while I didn't feel as if he brought things down but the CGI was definitely Rogue 1 horrible That one call-back line from the Newer android was WAY out of place / character All of the character transformations felt rushed compared to the other films and made a mess of how the xenomorph's gestation cycles work It looked odd for like 5 seconds and then I got over it because I'm not a crybaby who needs to complain about everything I gave it a rewatch last night and didn't notice the difference I thought it still looked terrible & that it was an unnecessary memberberry to begin with the movie was even worse on second viewing Fede shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the franchise I thought what I watched on Disney+ was an improvement on what I saw in the cinema for the Rook character I would love to have my likeness used in movies after I'm gone It was a needless callback to the original Alien and terrible CGI That whole sequence should have been cut and left on the editing room floor but didn't really care that much as everything else was so good This and the need to call back to the series for lines never really bothered me in the first place looking like one didn't really break any immersion Romulus City Councilwoman Virginia Williams has died The city announced Monday that Williams died unexpectedly on Dec. 15, 2024. She started serving as a councilwoman for Romulus in 2017. She won her reelection in 2021 as Council Chairperson Pro-Tem. Williams was known to give back by holding weekly food distributions with Forgotten Harvest, and organizing community events such as trunk-or-treats, movies in the park and annual holiday meal giveaways. “The City of Romulus sends heartfelt condolences to the family, friends and the countless lives that were touched through the contributions of Councilwoman Virginia Williams,” said the city in a press release. Community leaders and volunteers joins Citizens Changing Communities, founded by Williams, to complete her fifth annual Christmas Dinner giveaway on Dec. 17, 2024, to continue her legacy. The giveaway is being held at Romulus High School. “Councilwoman Virginia Williams was one of a kind. After being appointed as the Wayne County Sheriff in Jan 2021, she contacted me and literally helped me navigate through the city of Romulus, so I would understand how it was important for me to engage the citizens. She asked me to help serve meals to the citizens as well as donate funds for the cause. I did what I was told, and became even more successful because of her leadership and compassion, for the city of Romulus.” “Councilwoman Virginia Williams' legacy will always be that she wanted to make sure families are never without. I’m proud to have a small part in Councilwoman Williams' work for social change.” Copyright 2024 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit - All rights reserved. Samantha Sayles is an Oakland University alumna who’s been writing Michigan news since 2022. Before joining the ClickOnDetroit team, she wrote stories for WILX in Lansing and WEYI in Flint. Image Credits: “Alien: Romulus” (2024) Movie Poster via IMDb I can’t remember the last time I felt genuinely excited to see a movie on the big screen My movie theater experiences have all followed the same sequence of events: I’m excited for the movie I enter the theater with high expectations and finally I suffer through 90 minutes of boredom interspersed with my own frustrated sighs at Studio Trite decisions But in an industry where art intersects with business All of this could reasonably be seen as a too-good-to-be-true prelude to a movie which could easily disappoint audiences and fans This is exactly what I had to tell myself when my friends and I approached the viewing room for our 10:15 p.m they displayed a range of expressions on their faces: some seemed unamused while others only thinly concealed a look of shock Simply from reading the faces of movie-goers it was evident that everyone had strong opinions of “Romulus,” whether good or bad I’m happy to say that we exited the theater pleasantly surprised and genuinely exhilarated — and admittedly shocked by the third act I’ve been a fan of the “Alien” movies since I was 11 — probably a terrible age for someone to be introduced to a monster as morbid as the “Xenomorph.” I remember watching infamous scenes like the “chestburster” scene in the original “Alien” and being equal parts traumatized and morbidly curious I remember being terrified of the Xenomorph most out of all the movie monsters I had seen Its appearance is undeniably chilling: both bug-like and demonic I fell in love with nearly every other aspect of the film as well as its 1986 sequel “Aliens.” The set design of the ships and natural environments were both futuristic and dirty the characters were authentic and logical and the tension was executed flawlessly Sigourney Weaver’s portrayal of Ellen Ripley became one of my favorite movie performances I also began to recognize that “Alien” — far from just being a slasher movie in space — explored a lot of deeper themes: the fear of sexual violence capitalist exploitation and the origins of intelligent life The “Alien” franchise has always had great depth and sensational horror making it widely appealing as well as impactful Sequels in the “Alien” franchise have long struggled to live up to the excellence of the first two films vacillating between mediocre and completely unsalvageable The franchise has been a testing ground for the creative visions of many talented directors But while some sequels attempted to expand the mythology of the films like 2012’s “Prometheus,” others have felt like cash-grabs and popcorn flicks — the “Alien vs In directing “Alien: Romulus,” director Fede Álvarez fulfilled most of my high expectations and created a film which lands near the top of my personal ranking Álvarez takes audiences on a journey of emotion that carries such momentum and unrelenting energy The things that “Romulus” does well are done so well that it becomes possible to forgive its shortcomings Álvarez brought back the special effects team from James Cameron’s “Aliens,” which notably used complex animatronics and puppetry to bring creatures like the Xenomorph Queen to life convincing special effects pay dividends to creating effective horror both in getting reactions out of the audience and in instilling real fear in the actors on screen The cast of “Alien: Romulus” do a great job despite some of their characters lacking proper depth Some deaths in the film simply fail to carry any emotional weight yet this is made up for with convincing practical effects and good performances The film does well in developing two characters in particular: Rain and Andy played by Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson respectively The two characters’ dynamic is very interesting with Andy — a synthetic human — acting as a brotherly figure who was programmed by Rain’s father to protect her Other characters can often feel like alien fodder Another weak area for “Romulus” is its plot which mirrors the story of the original film very closely: low-level workers discover a derelict spacecraft stumble upon a dangerous alien species and subsequently fight for survival while being picked off one-by-one Many fans have felt frustrated by what has been seen as a lack of originality in the film’s writing and concepts with some comparing it to “The Force Awakens” and how that movie served only to reintroduce the “Star Wars” franchise to younger audiences instead of offering new ideas “Romulus’” constant callbacks to previous films don’t do much to help it beat allegations of unoriginality If you go to this film expecting new ideas But if you approach this movie for great action sequences and pure entertainment the most divisive part of this movie is the only part which introduces new ideas: the third act The third act of “Alien: Romulus” explores cosmic horror in a way no other film in the franchise has so far it could easily be seen by some viewers as both repulsive and ridiculous I found “Alien: Romulus” to be a very enjoyable experience it is undoubtedly one of the strongest installments in the franchise since the 1980s Josh Czaja is a second-year Political Science major. JC1029473@wcupa.edu I loved ” Romulus” and I agree with you The fact it was a fast paced Alien movie is what made it boring unless it’s Rob Zombie or Tarantino directing Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value" Last Saturday, Rain and Andy were cornered by a group of xenomorphs we learn that the station goes through periodic gravity purges This prompts Rain to shut off the gravity to the station which will give her the ability to shoot the xenomorphs without their acid immediately eating a hole in it She turns the gravity off and begins shooting the aliens the pair make their way through the floating puddles of acidic blood and reach an elevator shaft I liked this scene a lot because it made Rain seem clever — as she should be if she deserves to be the protagonist of the film. Ripley aside the other protagonists in this franchise have been infuriating always reacting to situations and never anticipating obvious problems Once inside the elevator shaft, Rain and Andy run into another problem. The gravity purges begin to pick up again, and Rain can’t make it to the top of the shaft before the first one kicks in. She begins to fall, but an alien catches her and pins her to the wall. Now, at this point, the viewer might be asking why the alien saved her but the next plot twist is very clever: A facehugger appears and begins creeping toward Rain it’s communicated that the alien is holding her in place so that the facehugger will be able to implant an embryo inside her It’s worth noting that here the monster has a goal I haven’t seen this in any of the earlier films appearing here and there and doing this or that because the script needs them to the xenomorph is a predator with a specific objective However, before the facehugger can do its work, Andy jumps from the top of the shaft and kills both aliens. Then Rain and Andy return to the ship. Rain puts Kay in a cryopod But just before Rain is about to enter a cryopod herself only to find her friend giving birth to a horrible creature Rain takes the shell to a large storage container at the bottom of their ship presumably used for transporting mined materials While the creature that crawls out of it is bad enough Rain rushes off to grab a weapon that will freeze the acid but the newborn alien returns to its mother before she can return and the newborn kills Kay and seriously damages Andy The movie ends with Rain promising herself that she will repair Andy before she goes into cryosleep escaping the mining planet where she’d spent her whole life Alien: Romulus isn’t perfect; it has plot holes here and there that vary in depth it’s one of the better additions to the series Before concluding this review, I want to give my final thoughts on the franchise as a whole. It’s mostly terrible. The first two movies are good, but after that, the bottom falls out. However, I do see a ray of light. Granted, that could be due to my dramatically dropped standards for evaluating this franchise. But if the audience sees a few more Romulus quality films and no more Alien Covenant quality They settle for making the process a mere contrivance so the audience can watch people die horribly at opportune times the why behind what the xenomorphs do is just ignored Another problem has been with the cartoonish casts in the later films. The first and second movies don’t have this issue. But Alien 3’s and Alien Resurrection’s characters are clowns. Prometheus’s and Covenant’s characters do things that make absolutely no sense They don’t want to die in the mines like some of their parents This makes the audience empathize with them Rooting for a cast is what raises the stakes in a movie then it doesn’t matter when they die because it’s abundantly clear that they aren’t really people But Rain taking risks to save her robot made sense because Andy was a gift from her dad Details like this compel an audience to care which creates a better story despite the plot holes I’m going to list the alien movies first chronologically Chronologically, the movies go as follows: Prometheus, Covenant, Alien They are so stupid that to watch them is to threaten your intellect Alien Resurrection is somewhere in the middle but only good if the viewer likes mindless B-movies I’m sad to say that I don’t think Romulus is going to do well at the box office because of the previous two films, but I hope its improved quality is an omen of things to come. The Alien franchise can still be saved if future writers will at least maintain this latest addition’s quality Here are the first three parts of my extended review: Alien: Romulus (2024) — Wait! This movie is actually good? A new character tries to escape the Weyland Corporation mine in which her parents were killed but the xenomorphs have infiltrated the space station the escapees must board… Romulus is likely harmed at the box office by the fact that the previous two films in the series were terrible It meets the minimum standard for a quality film Alien: Romulus (2024): Andy turns bad — Thanks to an old friend. Ash reappears in the story a nice touch which reconnects the film to the original When measuring the significance of a plot hole Alien: Romulus (2024) News flash: Ripley didn’t kill her first alien This film makes a serious effort to tie the alien anthology together Continuity is too often seriously neglected in this modern age of “cinema.”We learn that the aliens usually don’t intend to eat their prey but to use them to incubate facehugger embryos Mind Matters features original news and analysis at the intersection of artificial and natural intelligence. Through articles and podcasts, it explores issues, challenges, and controversies relating to human and artificial intelligence from a perspective that values the unique capabilities of human beings. Mind Matters is published by the Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence and this year’s telecast will feature a more unsettling list of bloody a rare interquel set between Ridley Scott’s original and James Cameron’s Aliens Magnus von Horn’s The Girl With the Needle received its nomination for Best International Feature Horror movies haven’t historically enjoyed a ton of recognition come awards season Horror fans have long lamented that their favorites are often beloved by millions usually reliably get returns for their respective studios and make the most of one of the most elastic yet rarely have any hardware to show for it The 1992 Academy Awards were a Buffalo Bill-sized exception when Jonathan Demme’s iconic The Silence of the Lambs won 5 Oscars Fargeat’s The Substance shocked and delighted audiences with its tale of how far an aging female star will go to remain relevant Demi Moore’s scorching performance led to a Golden Globe for her—her first ever nomination in a long career—and her Oscar nom now confirms the film’s potency Eggers’ Nosferatu is perhaps the least surprising member of the group considering the subject’s rich cinematic history and Eggers’s well-established reputation as a master architect of brilliant from The Witch to The Lighthouse to The Northman It was actually surprising it didn’t get a Best Picture nod but Eggers is no doubt thrilled his creative team has been given their due His longtime cinematographer Jarin Blaschke and production designer Craig Lathrop got nominations All richly deserved for a period piece whose terror was partly derived from how real it felt the single nomination for visual effects is still a xenomorphic feather in his cap and he could credibly claim he pulled off the best installment in the recent reboot of the Alien franchise twisted tale hit that sweet spot first created by Scott and then revved up by Cameron Alvarez found a next-generation Ripley (named Rain) honoring the great Sigourney Weaver’s trailblazing heroine in the first two films giving these interplanetary monsters and settings the jaw-dripping terror required Magnus von Horn’s black-and-white The Girl With the Needle is loosely based on the true story of Danish serial killer Dagmar Overbye and follows Karoline (Vic Carmen Sonne) unemployed pregnant woman in 1919 Copenhagen who encounters Dagmar and his underground adoption agency like exactly the kind of compassionate solution mothers in need require Karoline finds out the agency is anything but compassionate The 2025 Oscars are led by writer/director Jacques Audiard’s musical Emilia Pérez followed by director Brady Corbert’s historical epic The Brutalist and Jon M Close behind are Edward Berger’s Vatican-set thriller Conclave and James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown a look at Bob Dylan’s early years in New York Yet it’s nice to know that these esteemed films and Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here will be joined by those core four horror films representing the genre at this year’s Academy Awards the original Xenomorph is nodding happily in her hive mound Featured image: L-r: Lily-Rose Depp stars as Ellen Hutter in director Robert Eggers’ NOSFERATU Credit: Courtesy of Focus Features / © 2023 FOCUS FEATURES LLC; Demi Moore in “The Substance.” Courtesy MUBI Xenomorph in 20th Century Studios’ ALIEN: ROMULUS Keep up with The Credits for the latest in film The film — which opened at the top of the box office — also reaches new territory in The Walt Disney Company’s efforts to create more sustainable productions part of its commitment to environmental sustainability in all facets of the company.  the Alien: Romulus production crew used a dedicated sustainability department to reduce their environmental impact via the use of innovative set construction materials and advanced technologies to reduce fuel use and emissions.  Each set is made from 100% recycled materials and is recycled after use Alien: Romulus was the first tentpole feature film for the industry to utilize sets constructed from recycled cardboard case material The product performs like a conventional wood set — it can be painted have a structurally sound and strong build meaning the materials that were once the set of Alien: Romulus were recycled and then made into new sets The production crew of Alien: Romulus worked with Origo Studios to procure 100% renewable energy for all electricity used in the filming process — a first for a Disney production using a leased studio emissions were further reduced through electric vehicles leading to overall reduced emissions.    the production crew prioritized waste sorting which is the process of separating waste based on its materials and recyclability The crew collected and diverted from landfill 1739 kg of selected waste — nearly 3,839 pounds A weekly newsletter educated crew on the importance of waste sorting leading to a significant decrease in the amount of waste sent to landfill and increase in recycling by minimizing contamination were strategically placed throughout the set for easy access and visibility “This is the first film where I actually noticed [sustainability] I’ve noticed people doing their part,” Tom Moran but I would love to live up to that challenge.”  The sustainability efforts on Alien: Romulus will have far-reaching results that will benefit future productions Disney aims to ensure that all productions are created in an environmentally responsible manner to help make positive progress in addressing collective impacts.  The newsletter sent to the crew encouraged commitment to sustainability practices To learn more about Disney’s commitment to the environment, visit Disney Planet Possible Alien: Romulus is now available to purchase at digital retailers (Amazon — Avian Flu has been detected in Lakeshore Landing in Romulus and spots around Seneca Lake the Seneca Lake Pure Water Association announced on Wednesday The SLPWA said the flu "seems to be impacting" its snow goose population The association said homeowners in Lakeshore Landing have recently reported an unusually high number of dead snow geese in the area the Department of Environmental Conservation collected goose carcasses and sent them to Cornell University for testing test results showed that the geese were positive for Avian Flu "as suspected," the association said The SLPWA warned that the Avian Flu is contagious to other species of birds a 14% increase from $3.65 in November 2024 The SLPWA said people and their pets should avoid any dead birds but report what they find to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation If you must come into contact with a carcass The SLPWA said sunglasses would be sufficient double-bag the carcasses and dispose of them in your regular trash You'll need to wash any clothing or surface that came into contact with the carcass 20th Century Studios’ Alien: Romulus — the latest chapter in the iconic Alien franchise — took the No 1 spot with an estimated $41.8 million opening at the domestic box office this weekend This is the second biggest domestic opening in the current Alien series and the biggest opening of director Fede Alvarez’s career The film — which stars Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson — was also a global hit notching an estimated $109.9 million worldwide This weekend saw The Walt Disney Studios hold both the No 2 spots domestically with Alien: Romulus and Deadpool & Wolverine Alien: Romulus — which takes place chronologically after 1979’s Alien which was directed by Ridley Scott — follows a young group of scavengers who come face-to-face with the most terrifying creature in the universe Scott acted as a producer on Romulus, and “he’s been a great partner at every level,” according to Alvarez he was the first one to really pinpoint the things that were going to make this movie pop And he was totally right,” Alvarez said he helped me to zero in on the elements that needed all of my attention.” Alvarez — who also wrote the film with Rodo Sayagues — added that “the whole point of this movie was to take back Alien to the simplicity of the beginning of the franchise as it is Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes Alien: Romulus caps off The Walt Disney Company’s strong summer at the box office with Disney releasing the No The Walt Disney Studios now account for an estimated 42% of the Domestic summer box office On top of that, another film from a franchise formerly under the 21st Century Fox umbrella — May’s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes — earned roughly $400 million at the global box office Alien: Romulus is yet another example of Disney’s unique ability to produce creative stories while crafting must-see theatrical events for a global audience Erotic Survival Thriller ‘Bone Lake’ Sets October Theatrical Release Date Five Horror Movies Inspired by Fairy Tales to Stream This Week Multiverse Revenge Thriller ‘Redux Redux’ Acquired by Saban for Theatrical Release ‘Together’ Trailer – Alison Brie & Dave Franco’s Love and Flesh Get Corrupted Rock Climbing Survival Horror ‘The Sound’ Will Release in June ‘The Last of Us Part II’ Character Makes Violent Entrance in ‘The Last of Us’ Season 2 Netflix Renews Apocalyptic Sci-Fi Series ‘The Eternaut’ for Season 2 ‘Revival’ Trailer Brings the Dead Back to Life in SYFY Comic Book Adaptation Series Check Into Shudder’s ‘Hell Motel’ from the Creators of ‘Slasher’ [Trailer] Matthew Lillard in Talks to Join Mike Flanagan’s ‘Carrie’ TV Series Director Haylie Duff’s ‘I Am Your Biggest Fan’ Is a Predictable But Watchable Kidnapping Thriller [Review] ‘Rosario’ Review – Family Curse Horror Story Gets Caught in Familiar Possession Trappings ‘The Horror at Highrook’ Nails the Cosmic Horror Blendo Games’ Immersive Sim ‘Skin Deep’ Is Hilarious and Exhilarating [Review] ‘Until Dawn’ Review – Kitchen Sink Creature Feature Fails Its Source Material Let’s Cast a ‘White Lotus’ Season With Stephen King Characters Salem Horror Fest 2025 Opening Night Raises Hell with Ashley Laurence [Event Report] 6 Recent Free-to-Play Horror Games That’ll Give You Nightmares Supernatural Tactical Extraction Shooter ‘Nightmare Frontier’ Comes to Steam This Summer [Trailer] a ‘FAITH’-Inspired Farming Sim Coming This October [Trailer] ‘Clock Tower’-Inspired Survival Horror Title ‘Midnight Special’ Launches May 8 on Steam [Trailer] Body Horror Sim ‘Zoochosis’ Announced for PlayStation Consoles [Trailer] Latest ‘Elden Ring Nightreign’ Trailer Highlights the Game’s Systems [Watch] Both The Substance and Nosferatu have received a handful of major nominations for the Academy Awards but they’re not the only horror movies getting recognition this year Fede Alvarez’s Alien: Romulus has received a nomination for Best Visual Effects It’s interesting to note that Ridley Scott’s original sci-fi horror classic Alien took home the trophy for Best Visual Effects at the Oscars in 1980 and James Cameron’s action-packed sequel Aliens followed suit by winning the same major award at the Oscars in 1987 Alien 3 was later nominated in the same category at the Academy Awards in 1993 It wasn’t until 2013 that the Alien franchise popped back up at the Oscars with Prometheus being nominated for its Visual Effects This year’s nomination for Alien: Romulus will notably mark the franchise’s first appearance at the Academy Awards in twelve years Alien: Romulus has been heavily criticized for the visual effects employed to bring the late Ian Holm back to the screen, with Alvarez and his team actually going back in and attempting to fix the issue for the film’s home video release While that effects work may have been a little questionable it clearly did not prove to be a deterrent for the Academy’s voters this year The 97th Academy Awards air March 2 from the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood Alien: Romulus is now available on physical media and VOD outlets “While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe.” Owns Eli Roth's prop corpse from Piranha 3D Defending the Maligned ‘Alien Resurrection’ [Horror Queers Podcast] Celebrate #AlienDay With a New Official Poster and Teaser Trailer for ‘Alien: Earth’ 5 of This Week’s Coolest Horror Collectibles Including a Blood-Filled ‘Mortal Kombat’ Record Bleecker Street has acquired the US rights to Bone Lake setting an October 10 theatrical release date erotic survival thriller is directed by Mercedes Bryce Morgan (Spoonful of Sugar) and written by Joshua Friedlander (Holly Slept Over) A couple’s romantic vacation at a secluded lakeside estate is upended when they’re forced to share the mansion with a mysterious and attractive couple A dream getaway spirals into a nightmarish maze of sex bringing terrifying secrets to light and triggering a bloody battle for survival Nick Matthews (Saw X) serves as director of photography Trace Thurman wrote in his review out of Fantastic Fest “Bone Lake emerges as one of the biggest surprises of Fantastic Fest operating as an incredibly entertaining thriller that doesn’t skimp on the gore or the laughs It’s a goddamn blast from start to finish.” Bone Lake has been rated “R” for strong bloody violence Here’s my final verdict on ‘Alien Romulus’ I’ve been waiting a long time for “Alien: Romulus” As a nearly 30-year-old superfan of the “Alien” franchise I’ve experienced some rocky releases in my time (“Alien vs Predator: Requiem” was a real lowlight) and while I enjoyed the likes of “Prometheus” and “Alien: Covenant” more than many it’s fair to say those movies are flawed What I craved was an “Alien” movie that could be enjoyed without any caveats and “Romulus” has delivered exactly that.  This is the best the “Alien” franchise has been in a decade — the last time Xenomorph fans were treated to something this special was 2014’s “Alien: Isolation” video game — and I’m delighted to see the series back in the public eye back in the conversation for a positive reason “Alien: Romulus” is a franchise revival done right.  I practically skipped into my local movie theater on opening night I caught “Alien: Romulus” on the big screen three times in just 24 hours (and yes I have tickets for a fourth showing later this week) After spending the weekend reflecting on the movie alongside a few (minor) flaws that ultimately pale in comparison to what it gets right.  The first thing that immediately struck me about “Alien: Romulus” was how it absolutely nails the retrofuturism aesthetic of the original “Alien” movie the movie opens with a chunky analog computer system slowly whirring to life that I knew the franchise was in safe hands with director Fede Álvarez “Romulus” also takes production design cues from “Alien: Isolation” including the game’s iconic save station which had me practically squealing with excitement Forgoing the cleaner look of “Prometheus” was a very wise call I won’t quite say the cast of “Alien: Romulus” is universally excellent there are a couple of supporting characters that didn’t quite hit the mark for me but the movie soars where it matters most its leads Cailee Spaeny is a fantastic lead as Rain and delivered a Final Girl that is compelling compassionate and capable of kicking some extraterrestrial butt Then there’s David Jonsson as a reprogrammed android named Andy who delivers the best performance in the whole movie Spaeny and Jonsson drive “Romulus” forward facehuggers while creepy in their own right have mostly been used as mere conduits to introduce audiences to the real headliner these nightmarish little beasts are given plenty of time to shine all on their own The sequence that sees Rain and Tyler (Archie Renaux) tip-toe through a corridor bursting with facehuggers had me sweating and made them feel just as terrifying as the eponymous alien the close-up shot of one being removed after delivering its dark payload was downright skin-crawling.  If there’s one aspect of “Alien: Romulus” that seems to have split opinions I’m eager to avoid spoilers here — just in case you’re reading this article without having seen the movie yet (go book your tickets ASAP) — but let’s just say it takes the franchise in an unexpected direction I wasn’t sure about this part and feared the movie had jumped the shark right at the very end I began to appreciate the climax a whole lot more.  I’ve seen a few negative reviews of “Alien: Romulus” accuse it of being fairly derivative of the 1979 original and while it certainly does feel like a mash-up of the franchise’s greatest hits “Alien” needed to be stripped back to basics “Alien: Covenant” whiffed because it was an ambitious swing trying to mix the philosophical ideas of “Prometheus” with the franchise’s classic horror thrills and it failed to land with critics and audiences alike.  Instead, “Alien: Romulus” reminds me of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” a back-to-basics crowd-pleaser that can serve as a solid foundation for a more narrative-ambitious sequel a la “The Last Jedi”.  Vaguely egregious fan service has become a staple of so-called “legacy sequels” and “Alien: Romulus” is no less guilty of falling into this trap an android science officer based on the look of the late Ian Holm (who played Ash in “Alien”) describing the Xenomorph as the “perfect organism” a cute reference but for the same character to then mimic another famous line from “Alien” (“I can’t lie to you about your chances but you have my sympathies”) felt far too on the nose and the scene where Andy pinches Ripley’s most famous line from “Aliens” felt so shameless that you can practically see the character winking at the camera.  Disney has been experimenting with “deepfake” CGI technology for several years now and “Alien: Romulus” serves as the House of Mouse's latest playground to digitally de-age cast members or in this case bring a deceased actor back to the big screen Ian Holm's likeness is used for Rook and while the tech is impressive on a fundamental level it’s still not convincing enough to trick your brain into believing that you’re watching a real human performer.  there’s also the ethical question about bringing back the likeness of an actor has passed away in 2020 it’s an uncanny valley I don’t think “Alien: Romulus” needed to cross He covers a wide range of topics but with a particular focus on gaming and streaming When he’s not reviewing the latest games or writing hot takes on new gaming hardware he can be found attending music festivals and getting far too emotionally invested in his favorite football team ShareSaveCommentBusinessHollywood & EntertainmentHow VHS Makes ‘Alien: Romulus’ Timeless And What’s Up With A SequelBySimon Thompson Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights Simon is a Los Angeles-based journalist who covers film and TV.Follow AuthorDec 04 co-writer and executive producer Fede Álvarez at the UK Gala of 'Alien: Romulus' in .. It's been a big year for the Alien franchise Not only did the crowd-pleasing Alien: Romulus revive the iconic film series becoming the second highest-grossing movie in the franchise worldwide but it now has the honor of being Disney's first VHS release in 30 years couldn't please director Fede Álvarez more "For major studios, this is the first release in VHS since A History of Violence. Once you look at Alien: Romulus on VHS it finally accomplished one of my missions with the film: to make sure it felt timeless," he enthuses "The best sci-fi movies like Alien and Star Wars have that quality They're not affected by any trends of the times That's why Aliens aged a bit more; it's more 80s in some aspects We did that on Alien: Romulus with the costumes "We didn't use anamorphic lenses because anamorphic would have been an effort to make it very retro There was an elaborate formula to make sure we captured that vibe where the colors have a little bit less contrast has that vibe of a little bit of a wobble in the sound and all that automatically seals the deal It would be hard for someone that hadn't heard about this movie Is this from the 80s?' It's really hard Alien: Romulus follows six spunky young space colonists who come across hostile creatures while scavenging a derelict space station Alien: Romulus received largely positive reviews from critics when it landed in theaters and has grossed over $350 million worldwide Audiences and Álvarez are keen to return to space with a sequel We did it when we found a story that we were excited about "You need to find a story worth the title so that's what we're doing right now We're really working hard on trying to put together a story that is that is worth bringing to the big screen." Director Fede Alvarez announced the VHS at a special Beyond Fest screening at the Aero Theater in .. Alien: Romulus was initially intended to go straight to streaming it was decided that the film would instead premiere on the big screen opening in the top spot at the box office and exceeding expectations Álvarez remembers the relief he felt as he watched the figures come in for the film's $42 million debut "I've been lucky enough to have made four movies at this point the bad part of that is that's what you expect and so it is usually a relief," the director explains or business thing; it's just that you put so much love and work into a movie that what you want is to make sure that when it comes out There's nothing lonelier than when you dedicate two or three years of your life to something 'I don't really care about it.' It's like I put this thing together,' and they're like "It's great when people actually show up because when your pieces travel more and people read your words you feel like your interest in the things you love are things people love the fact that they show up is a great part because the reactions to it change through the years; good or bad (Left to right) Actors Spike Fearn and Aileen Wu More actress Isabela Merced and actor Archie Renaux attend the 'Alien: Romulus' premiere at the TCL Chinese Theater in Hollywood one of Alien: Romulus' most significant selling points is Álvarez's use of physical effects over CGI His ability to go all in on that was make or break when it came to taking on the project at all "It was the whole pitch from the beginning," the filmmaker said I always had a good time in theaters even if I would try to protest about something coming out 'Why did they do this?' It's fine I was always there opening at night and had a good time I remember watching Alien: Covenant and feeling that when the creature showed up I was in it until the first creature came out what a bummer.' Nothing wakes you up from the dream of the movie like CG that doesn't feel like it belongs." "I think if it was a different kind of movie there was something about that texture that you just want to feel like the creatures are in the room so I thought it was a massive part of what didn't work for me on Alien: Covenant It was the first time that the Aliens were actually full CG because even in Prometheus There were definitely some CG creatures in there and that's why I need to make you say wow and that's harder and harder to do." the more we can see the strings and that it's not real we have to figure out ways to make sure we do what Hollywood always did to be the greatest show on earth and convince you that what's happening on the screen is actually there that it's a window to another dimension where that story is unfolding." Xenomorph in 20th Century Studios' 'Alien: Romulus.' Álvarez also wanted to make the Xenomorphs his own and went to great lengths to perfect and manifest his own vision for the look and even texture of the intergalactic boogeymen "Because every director took a slightly different direction I wanted to take it back and rewind into to the beginning It felt it had evolved too much and got away from home," he recalls "It is not necessarily purist and completely identical to the first film It went back to being biomechanical; that was an aspect of the first film that freaked you out when you originally watched it because it looked like a machine a little bit There are a lot of aspects of the design where they took parts from machines that put it on its head but something about that dropped through the years and tried to be more realistic But who wants reality when you do it in horror?" "We also had the cocoon stage where we can take inspiration from all the H.R Giger work and create this state between the chest burster and back to the original style Dane Hallett worked with us and did many of the new paint jobs for the Face Hugger designs We knew it needed to be practical; it needed to be a guy in a suit and that was a good way to do something that hadn't been seen before." Director Fede Alvarez on the set of 20th Century Studios' 'Alien: Romulus.' Álvarez's quest for authenticity with Alien: Romulus also involved keeping his cast on their toes and in the moment "I have always done that since Evil Dead if the actors are up for it," the director laughs but it's the same with any genre; you never want to lose that sense of play and we're going through this adventure together is that when you start making movies as a teenager You see some tunnel or construction site that you go or that was a tunnel?' and you take a camera and you come up with some idea on the fly of what that is and what story could happen that little tunnel "That's why I shoot the movies in order every time I can so you go with the actors and the crew into this adventure together and I'm there like a war photographer to witness what's happening; otherwise the creature would show up many times; they read it in the script They probably got a glimpse of a guy in a suit on a golf cart going to a stage and then the moment we were about to shoot they still could not believe what they'd seen It seemed inevitable that 20th Century would push for a sequel to Alien: Romulus And because I’m protective of the franchise I’m thrilled by the recent comments director Fede Alvarez made about the sequel’s development he explained some of his hesitancy when he said: The mistake usually with sequels is to make them because you can But I wouldn’t do it unless we have a really good idea for it something that’s worthy of the title As for the status of the script of a possible Alien: Romulus sequel because I know that he’s hoping up the bar of quality before he gets back in the saddle co-writer] and I are working on that right now We’ve almost checked all of the boxes of things that I want to see [in Romulus] and brought back a lot of the things I hadn’t seen in a while … 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 We won’t see an Alien: Romulus sequel this year. If it happens at all, I’m thinking 2026 or 2027. So while you are waiting, dial up our guide to upcoming 2025 movies and plan a more recent trip to the theaters which he proudly cohosts with Jake Hamilton and Kevin McCarthy And he's the author of RELEASE THE SNYDER CUT the Spider-Man history book WITH GREAT POWER Ahead Of Disney’s Live-Action Lilo And Stitch Remake An Animatronic Stitch Scanned Tickets At A Movie Theater (And The Viral Video Is Great) The Miami Vice Reboot Already Has One Thing Going For It With Top Gun: Maverick's Director William Shatner Posted His Annual Star Wars Day Message Update your browser to view this website correctly. Update my browser now We spoke with 13 sound teams from top films released in 2024 Los Angeles, CA (January 13, 2025)—Our recent Mix Presents Sound For Film: Awards Season all-day virtual event highlighted some of the most amazing work happening in motion picture sound right now We spoke with 13 sound teams from some of the top films released in 2024; here’s one of the most notable moments and insights from the day: This is obviously a bit of a dream job as a sound guy sound designer/supervising sound editor] I who are both huge fans of the Alien franchise in general When [director Fede Alvarez] started telling us his vision for wanting to go back aesthetically to that time period—doing things practically and then sonically really trying to live in that same world as the original film—we lit up… The thing that we hit on was that not only is it tape saturation but also tape wow and flutter that’s a big part of the ’79 movie any beep or tone has a bunch of warble to it and there’s no pure tones at all in that film Everything’s ‘wah-wahwah,’ and it sort of comes across as a stylistic choice but I think largely it was just a limitation of their equipment at the time let’s just try putting that on the entire mix.’ Now the entire mix has a layer of tape emulation that’s providing a certain amount of noise and analog-style saturation so there’s no pure tones in the whole film and I was a little afraid of what he might say Mix Staff an international media group and leading digital publisher which means now’s a good time to talk about an improvement that was apparently made to the home release The Don’t Breathe director’s rationale for this fresh coat of paint was as follows: We just ran out of time in post-production to get it right I wasn’t 100 per cent happy with some of the shots So these are parties that are still working together in the midst of such refreshing I wasn’t as against the effect when I first saw it I feel like I need to watch the movie again to spot this key difference Álvarez described in these further remarks: [Animatronic puppeteer] Shane Mahan actually did this animatronic of Ian Holm based on a head cast from Lord Of The Rings What we did [for the home entertainment version] was revert a lot more to the puppet I know this upgraded version of Alien: Romulus was only allowed to happen due to its box office success but I’d love to see other movies get this same sort of redemption Thinking back to the stories of how The Thing’s 2011 prequel made its own shift from practical on-set effects to CGI it’d be really interesting to get the original cut of that picture - the way it was meant to be seen I once more send my thanks to Fede Álvarez and the folks at 20th Century Studios for making this tweak It shows dedication and love to an iconic franchise and it now gives me another reason to re-watch one of my favorite films from last year Hulu subscription holders in the US can follow my example and stream Alien: Romulus’ new and slightly tweaked cut Xenomorphs and synthetic persons will be online to enjoy starting January 15th though that title’s more of a guideline really Passionate about entertainment since grade school the movies have always held a special place in his life Mike graduated from Drew University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science but swore off of running for public office a long time ago Mike's expertise ranges from James Bond to everything Alita I'm Cautiously Optimistic About The American Psycho Remake But I Think There's Another Option That Needs To Be Considered Fans Get Real About What Movies ‘Traumatized’ Them So Hard As Kids They Can’t Watch Them As Adults And Apparently They Were All Raised On Horror Channing Tatum’s Comments About Avengers: Doomsday Make It Seem Like His Gambit Return Isn’t Guaranteed (And Now I’m Nervous) Those callbacks didn’t always come without controversy – one surprise awaiting audiences was the arrival of android character Rook, given the face of the late, great Ian Holm (with his estate’s permission), who played nefarious ‘bot Ash in Scott’s original Alien was somewhat uncanny – which became the subject of much discussion among fans “We just ran out of time in post-production to get it right,” the director tells Empire in a major new interview “I wasn’t 100 per cent happy with some of the shots and that was the only one in existence,” says Alvarez the choice was made to lean much more on digital effects “What we did [for the home entertainment version] was revert a lot more to the puppet,” the filmmaker says “It’s way better.” Thank goodness he didn’t end up using that mysterious black goo Company number 01176085; Bauer Radio Limited Company number: 1394141; Registered office: Media House Peterborough PE2 6EA and H Bauer Publishing Company number: LP003328; Registered office: The Lantern H Bauer Publishing are authorised and regulated for credit broking by the FCA (Ref No: 845898) it seems Alvarez plans to go in the opposite direction – taking Alien somewhere more unexpected co-writer] and I are working on that right now,” the filmmaker tells Empire We’ve almost checked all of the boxes of things that I want to see [in Romulus] and brought back a lot of the things I hadn’t seen in a while we can go into uncharted waters.” The plan would to be follow the exploits of Cailee Spaeny’s protagonist Rain “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,” he says A direct Romulus sequel would only arise if Alvarez finds a story worth telling “The mistake usually with sequels is to make them because you can we definitely can make a sequel,” he states “But I wouldn’t do it unless we have a really good idea for it something that’s worthy of the title.” Our chests are positively bursting with excitement Bauer Consumer Media Ltd, Company number 01176085; Bauer Radio Limited, Company number: 1394141; Registered office: Media House, Peterborough Business Park, Lynch Wood, Peterborough PE2 6EA and H Bauer Publishing, Company number: LP003328; Registered office: The Lantern, 75 Hampstead Road, London NW1 2PL All registered in England and Wales. VAT no 918 5617 01 Mona R. Romulus, 77, of South Bend, IN passed away on December 12, 2024, at Raclin House. She was born on October 27, 1947, in Leogane, Haiti to the late Constant Romulus and Iline Louis. Mona was a homemaker, and she loved to cook. Survivors include daughters; Marie George Romulus, Leogane, Haiti, Judelle Innocent, South Bend, IN. Sons; Evans Allan Romulus, Leogane, Haiti and Jean Makatu Innocent, Indianapolis, IN. Brothers; Wesner Desir, Port Au Prince, Haiti and Roosvelt Desir, Leogane, Haiti and one sister Marie Joceline Gaques, FL. 10 Grandchildren and 2 Great Grandchildren. A memorial service will be held at Palmer Funeral Home, Bubb Chapel, 3910 N. Main St., Mishawaka, IN 46545 at 10 AM on Friday, December 27, 2024. Online condolences may be left for the family at www.palmerfuneralhomes.com Some years ago, en route from JFK Airport to Manhattan I had a conversation with a cab driver that has remained with me ever since He was an old guy with a strong New York accent and the cab was a so-called gypsy cab – one of those unregulated and unlicensed taxis that can’t be hailed on the street and which have presumably mostly been driven from the market by ride-sharing apps because the monologue itself had to do with extinction including the old white New York native driving the cab (Even the introduction of a subject by means of a reported exchange with a cab driver seems as a broadsheet newspaper columnist gambit although I would hope charmingly – not to mention post-modernistly and self-awarely – so.) as we sat in traffic on the Van Wyck Expressway he delivered a meandering and often confusing soliloquy on the subject of de-extinction or were on the verge of doing so (he wasn’t that clear on the details) When I expressed polite scepticism about the idea Not only had they cloned the woolly mammoth but they were planning – and I remember his words quite clearly here – to parade it up and down Fifth Avenue I remember asking whether it was going to be part of a pre-existing parade – like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade or St Patrick’s Day – or if the woolly mammoth would be given its own stand-alone parade He was (not unfairly) impatient with my line of questioning What the hell did it matter what kind of parade it was; the point was they had brought the woolly mammoth back to life after thousands of years and now they were going to parade the bastard up and down Fifth Avenue I suspected this man was in some way deranged I believed he was metabolising some deep and unspeakable discomfort with the modern world into a hysterical sci-fi scenario cobbled together out of fragments of Jurassic Park [ Life on Earth is entering its sixth mass extinction, report saysOpens in new window ] Last week, the Texas biotechnology firm Colossal Biosciences announced that it had “de-extincted” the dire wolf a species of wolf native to the Americas which disappeared during the mass extinctions of the Late Pleistocene era The company claims that by using cloning and gene-editing technology it has created three dire wolf pups and that this constitutes the first ever successful “de-extinction” of a once-extinct animal The cover of last week’s issue of Time magazine featured a striking photograph of one of the animals a beautiful white-coated wolf with pale yellow eyes staring directly at the viewer like a revenant at once of the deep past and the near future Over the wolf the word “Extinct” is crossed out followed by a bold cover line: “This is Remus Endangered species could be changed forever.” as many scientists have been keen to point out What Colossal Biosciences have achieved is in fact more a combination of publicity stunt dog-breeding and Game of Thrones live-action role play (The choice of the dire wolf for de-extinction was guided by the prominence of those animals in George RR Martin’s novels and the HBO show based on them; a less pop-culturally legible species would surely have caused nowhere near the same kind of stir.) many species that are currently endangered when we can just pick and choose the coolest ones to bring back from prehistory The company’s scientists made a small number of relatively minor adjustments to the genome of the existing grey wolf and then implanted these edited embryos in large dogs extracting them after gestation by Caesarean section These aren’t really dire wolves at all; they’re an entirely new species of wolf that were bred to look like what people think dire wolves probably looked like There is something unsettling about the whole idea and it has to do with more than just the distinctly Frankensteinian queasiness around messing with the source-code of nature and the way in which it offers us the illusion of undoing one of the great catastrophes of our own era: the mass extinctions that are being caused by our ongoing destruction of the environment if we have in recent years seen the disappearance from the Earth of and the Pinta giant tortoise if we can just bring them back climate change and so on: these things are less of a concern now that we can science our way out of it or at least fool ourselves into thinking we can [ One in five migratory species under protection at risk of extinction, UN report findsOpens in new window ] who was recently appointed by Donald Trump as US secretary of the interior: “It’s time to fundamentally change how we think about species conservation we must celebrate removals from the endangered list – not additions The only thing we’d like to see go extinct is the need for an endangered species list to exist.” not least because no one was celebrating additions to the endangered species list to begin with It’s not as though the Trump administration needed an excuse not to bother with species conservation but they’re happy to take one when it falls into their laps [ Jaws, Piranha, the big, bad wolf ... no wonder there is a serious disconnect with natureOpens in new window ] Colossal Biosciences, flushed with the success of its first so-called de-extinction, is ready for ever-more spectacular and headline-grabbing tasks. According to CEO Brian Lamming, it is aiming to have woolly mammoths back up and running by 2028. As absurd as the idea of these megafauna – or some hirsute new breed of elephant genetically tweaked to be passed off as such – parading up and down Fifth Avenue might well still be, it does seem slightly less implausible than it once did. Facebook pageTwitter feed© 2025 The Irish Times DAC general audiences first bore witness to the grotesque horror of the chest-burster scene in the original “Alien” — and the extraterrestrial thriller genre was never quite the same the franchise has birthed eight more films although the series has significantly evolved in terms of tone genre and message in ways that have not always been well-received by critics and diehard fans alike With the recent release of “Alien: Romulus,” however Rain Carradine (Cailee Spaeny) and Andy (David Jonsson) shine and their relationship was a persistent thread of hope in a film that was full of bleak moments It’s difficult to grill the performances of their fellow actors too harshly simply due to the nature of an “Alien” movie — we doubt the acting talent was intended to be the primary or even secondary draw of this film that there are scenes in which you will most likely find yourself either exasperated or yelling at the screen as a character does something foolish (because obviously you would display the utmost astuteness when faced with a giant apex predator in the cold depths of space) in taking over from previous directors of the franchise He could continue the show-don’t-tell style narrative worldbuilding of Ridley Scott’s “Prometheus” and “Alien: Covenant.” He could pivot the franchise back toward the mindless/moronic action offered by the later “Alien” and “Predator” films you don’t ponder the lore implications and you aren’t aroused by an upcoming shootout – you are transfixed by the screen What Álvarez chose to do was to take the viewer back to 1979 back to that first time you were petrified of what could be out there in the night sky The third act does suffer from overuse of the Xenomorph threat although we did find the live-birth of the human-xenomorph hybrid a brief yet effective invigoration of energy the film so sorely needed at that point Would we have preferred for the human-xenomorph creature to have a role of greater prominence within this film was simply cut down to not include any mention of the outcome of Kay’s pregnancy One narrative choice made by Álvarez that we greatly appreciated was making all of the protagonists young adults/teens bypassing the largest (and blandest) criticism of “Prometheus” — the trained scientists touching the foreign biological specimens and panicking The fact that our protagonists are untrained immature and reckless does help justify some of their decisions The most important question in picking out a film for movie night isn’t actually whether or not the movie is good but whether or not it is suitable for your viewing Please note All comments are eligible for publication by The Rice Thresher Romulus and Remus are doing what puppies do: chasing But there’s something very un-puppylike about the snowy white 6-month olds—their size At their young age they already measure nearly 4 ft Then there’s their behavior: the angelic exuberance puppies exhibit in the presence of humans—trotting up for hugs Even one of the handlers who raised them from birth can get only so close before Romulus and Remus flinch and retreat this is wild lupine behavior: the pups are wolves they’re dire wolves—which means they have cause to be lonely The dire wolf once roamed an American range that extended as far south as Venezuela and as far north as Canada, but not a single one has been seen in over 10,000 years, when the species went extinct. Plenty of dire wolf remains have been discovered across the Americas, however, and that presented an opportunity for a company named Colossal Biosciences.  Buy a copy of the Dire Wolf issue here Relying on deft genetic engineering and ancient, preserved DNA, Colossal scientists deciphered the dire wolf genome rewrote the genetic code of the common gray wolf to match it into the world during three separate births last fall and this winter—effectively for the first time de-extincting a line of beasts whose live gene pool long ago vanished TIME met the males (Khaleesi was not present due to her young age) at a fenced field in a U.S on the condition that their location remain a secret to protect the animals from prying eyes golden coat and the accelerated fat metabolism of the mammoth Techniques learned restoring the dire wolf can similarly be used to support the endangered red wolf “We are an evolutionary force at this point,” says Beth Shapiro, Colossal’s chief science officer, speaking of humanity as a whole. “We are deciding what the future of these species will be.” The Center for Biological Diversity suggests that 30% of the planet’s genetic diversity will be lost by 2050 and Shapiro and Colossal CEO Ben Lamm insist that genetic engineering is a vital tool to reverse this Company executives often frame the technology not just as a moral good who have driven so many species to the brink of extinction “If we want a future that is both bionumerous and filled with people,” Shapiro says “we should be giving ourselves the opportunity to see what our big brains can do to reverse some of the bad things that we’ve done to the world already.” cloning can be hard on the surrogate mother that gestates the cloned embryo There’s a risk of side effects that are severe,” says Robert Klitzman professor of psychiatry and director of the bioethics master's program at Columbia University “There’s a lot of suffering involved in that Colossal’s scientists believe they are on to something powerful the company’s chief animal officer—who once worked as senior director of animal care at the Dallas Zoo and Zoo Miami where he managed the welfare of 7,000 animals representing 500 species—felt the significance of the science when Romulus and Remus were just 5 or 6 weeks old and one of the veterinary techs began singing a song from The Little Mermaid When she reached a point at which she vocalized first up Romulus and Remus turned her way and began howling in response chilling moment.” These pups were the first to produce a howl that hadn’t been heard on earth in over 10,000 years but those tweaks gave rise to a host of differences The dire wolf genome analyzed to determine what those changes were was extracted from two ancient samples—one a 13,000-year-old tooth found in Sheridan Pit the other a 72,000-year-old ear bone unearthed in American Falls The samples were lent by the museums that house them The lab work that happened next was painstaking Colossal’s dire wolf work took a less invasive approach isolating cells not from a tissue sample of a donor gray wolf The cells they selected are known as endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) The scientists then rewrote the 14 key genes in the cell’s nucleus to match those of the dire wolf; no ancient dire wolf DNA was actually spliced into the gray wolf’s genome The edited nucleus was then transferred into a denucleated ovum which were allowed to develop into embryos in the lab Those embryos were inserted into the wombs of two surrogate hound mixes chosen mostly for their overall health and since they’d be giving birth to large pups one embryo took hold and proceeded to a full-term pregnancy (No dogs experienced a miscarriage or stillbirth.) On Oct Colossal repeated the procedure with another clutch of embryos and another surrogate mother Read more: The Science Behind the Return of the Dire Wolf the mama hounds were kept at Colossal’s animal-care facility where they were regularly monitored and given weekly ultrasounds by staff scientists and veterinarians All three wolves were born by planned cesarean section to minimize the risk of birthing complications A four-person team performed the surgery and lifted out the pups; four more attendants cleaned and swaddled the newborns while the surgical team looked after the mother as she emerged from anesthesia “We elected to put both pups with the surrogate who was displaying the best maternal instincts,” says James “That reintroduction occurred just about two or so hours after birth and she immediately began caring for them and allowing them to nurse.” The pups fed from the surrogate for just a few days after which the Colossal team removed them and bottle-fed them because the surrogate was actually becoming too attentive—disrupting the pups’ regular sleeping and feeding schedules They were weaned at eight weeks and have been living the lives of healthy young dire wolves since then “The idea that we could just take a vial of blood and they have a pretty high cloning efficiency we think it’s a game changer,” says George Church and professor of genetics at both Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology The less invasive cell-sampling process will make the procedure easier on animals and the fact that Colossal’s methods worked on this early go-round boosts company confidence that they are on track for much broader de-extinction and rewilding the dire wolves have lived on a 2,000-acre ecological preserve at a location in the U.S that Colossal also keeps secret to protect the animals; the grounds are much larger than the relatively small enclosure TIME visited fence and include a smaller six-acre site with a veterinary clinic and natural dens where the wolves can satisfy their innate desire for a secure retreat A staff of veterinarians looks out for the animals around the clock and deer meat as well as liver and other offal along with puppy chow to provide vital nutrients which is similar to the partially digested meat a mother will regurgitate to feed her young Now the food is presented whole so the wolves can tear it apart as they would if they had hunted it down So far they have not actually killed any small live prey that may have ventured into their enclosure “We have not seen them attempt to hunt any live prey and we do not provide live prey,” says Paige McNickle “But if I were a deer I would stay away from their preserve.” “I think they are the luckiest animals ever,” says Shapiro “They will live their entire life on this protected ecological reserve and we want to study them for their lives and understand how these edits might have modified things that we can’t predict They’re not going to be able to get a splinter without us finding out.” So far nothing worrisome or unexpected has turned up in the wolves the longest gestation period of any mammal And this genetic transformation will involve even more than the one that created the wolves “We were originally talking about editing about 65 genes,” says Lamm “We’re now talking about 85 different genes and some of those will have multiple [functions] like cold tolerance—which includes additional subcutaneous fat layers and their shaggy coat.” As with the dire wolves no ancient mammoth DNA will be spliced into the elephant’s genome; the elephant genes will simply be rewritten to match the mammoth’s The company says it has so far edited 25 of those genes and is “on track for our embryos to be ready for implantation by the end of 2026,” to meet its goal of a calf being born in 2028 No matter how the resulting woolly baby might look Colossal admits that in some respects it will be a mammoth in name only “They’re elephant surrogates that have some mammoth DNA to make them re-create core characteristics belonging to mammoths,” says Shapiro But that might be a distinction without a difference If it looks like a mammoth and behaves like a mammoth and if given the opportunity to breed with another engineered elephant with mammoth-mimicking DNA it’s hard to say that the species hasn’t been brought back from the dead “Our mammoths and dire wolves are mammoths and dire wolves by that definition,” says Shapiro “They have the key traits that make that lineage of organisms distinct." The question then becomes what to do with the mammoth you’ve made once it’s at large in the world—a question that bedevils all of Colossal’s work Shapiro might not be wrong when she says Romulus at least in terms of the round-the-clock care and love they will receive throughout their lives Wolf packs can, on occasion, be as small as two members, but typically include 15 or more. What’s more, the animals’ hunting territory can range anywhere from 50 to 1,000 sq. mi Colossal’s three dire wolves spending their entire lives in a 2,000-acre preserve could be awfully lonely and claustrophobic—not at all the way wild dire wolves would live their lives and Khaleesi are exhibiting behaviors that would serve them well in the wild but do little for them in semicaptivity They began howling when they were just 2 weeks old and early on began stalking—hunting leaves or anything that moved running to hide in dark places if they were surprised or alarmed “From day one they have always behaved like wolves and have rarely shown doglike behavior,” says McNickle “Our protocols ensure that people are never in a situation where the wolves might be frightened or become aggressive toward their caretakers,” she says “My guess is that they specialized in dealing with the very large megafauna of the Ice Age whereas I would say that gray wolves are a bit more of a generalist,” says McIntyre A general principle in wildlife is that it’s good to be flexible The mammoth creates even greater challenges. Elephants are exceedingly intelligent, exceedingly social creatures, gathering in herds of up to 25 individuals those groups combine in much larger clans of up to 1,000 animals around a vital resource like a watering hole the animals will travel up to 40 miles a day in search of food and water—and that’s only average Sometimes their daily wanderings may cover 125 miles No one knows if mammoths would exhibit the same social and exploratory needs confining one or even a few individuals to an enclosure like the dire wolves’ would amount to a sort of near-solitary confinement “I really feel that bringing back one or even five woolly mammoths is not a good idea,” says Stephen Latham director of the Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics at Yale University “A single woolly mammoth is not a woolly mammoth leading a woolly mammoth life with a woolly mammoth herd.” as well as controlling populations of smaller prey like raccoons and opossums most of the others having been claimed by poaching and car strikes the company also announced that it had cloned four red wolves—a small but important step in fortifying the species as a whole the species suffers from what is known as a “genetic bottleneck,” a lack of diversity in the genome that can lead to infertility and inherited birth defects What is needed is a way to refresh the gene line with new DNA conservationists identified all species—including the red wolf—principally by their phenotype Plenty of wolves that did not fit the right size or color for the red wolf might have been carrying what researchers refer to as “ghost alleles”—or red wolf gene variations that did not show up in the wolves’ color a Colossal scientific adviser and an associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University an associate professor of wildlife science and conservation at Michigan Tech discovered populations of canids along the coasts of Louisiana and Texas whose DNA included both coyote genes and red wolf ghost alleles The four red wolves the Colossal scientists created used that natural genetic reservoir to produce what they call the first Ghost Wolf with an eye to eventually fortifying the red wolf species with more such young carrying a variety of genes The cloned red wolves now live in a separate fenced area within the same 2,000-acre preserve as the dire wolves they will spend their lives there and not be rewilded as Colossal learns more about the clones’ health and fitness The company says it’s in advanced discussions with the state of North Carolina about “conservation tools that can be used to help rescue the red wolf and accelerate its recovery.” “It’s the lost genetics of the world’s most endangered wolf,” says James “And we now have the opportunity to use our cloning and genetic-engineering tools to be able to confer that genetic diversity back into the recovery of the species.” Similar science might work to save the northern quoll, a small, carnivorous marsupial native to Australia. Quolls are threatened by the cane toad, which was introduced to Australia in 1935 in an attempt to control beetle pests that were devouring sugarcane roots with the toads showing no particular appetite for the target insects all the while doing a fine job of feasting on other insect prey and becoming an invasive species themselves prey on the toads—but often lose their lives in the process because of a toxin that the toads carry on their skin pushing the little marsupial to the edge of extinction Through their work trying to bring back the extinct thylacine one member of the marsupial family that includes the quoll Colossal scientists have identified a single change in a single nucleotide—a basic building block of DNA and RNA—that could confer a 5,000-fold resistance to the cane toad neurotoxin “We as humanity introduced this cane toad species We as humanity are now inadvertently killing off the quoll as well as other marsupials,” says Lamm “This one change can make these super quolls that can love eating cane toads Those are the types of wins that we can get using these genetic technologies.” Colossal has mostly successes on its tote board but though the woolly mouse and dire wolves are the first edited animals that have come from the labs scientists not affiliated with the company stress that genetic engineering is head-crackingly complex and all manner of unintended downstream consequences can occur when you start mucking around in the engine room of the cells “There’s a phenomenon called pleiotropy in which one gene has an effect on more than one trait,” says Alison van Eenennaam professor of animal biotechnology and genetics at the University of California There could be some genes they’re targeting for specific traits that have effects that are not compatible with survival.” Even if Colossal gets the gene editing right the business of gestating the desired young could present other obstacles Cloning of livestock still results in more misses than hits “You get high rates of perinatal and pregnancy loss,” says van Eenennaam.  there’s always the possibility that a precious handful of de-extincted animals could run riot in the modern world The cane toad’s transition from pest eater to invasive species is a reminder of how quickly human intrusion into wild processes can spin out of control Bioethicist Latham points to mosquito control as one more concerning example “There are a number of efforts to genetically modify mosquitoes so that they will have mass die-outs or so that they won't be able to carry particular diseases like dengue or malaria,” he says “I worry about our losing control of some of those efforts because mosquitoes—even though they carry diseases that are bad for people—occupy a niche in ecology in that they’re eaten by certain kinds of birds.” There’s precedent for this kind of genetic hegemony beyond the cane toad. Asian carp, introduced into the U.S. in the 1970s by the aquaculture industry, are overwhelming the Great Lakes, crowding out other species. Burmese pythons have established a similar invasive niche in the Everglades released there by owners who tired of caring for them provides AI and computational biology platforms for drug development And none of that touches Colossal’s core expertise in cellular and genetic engineering which has uncounted applications in the biomed domain including treating and preventing diseases “Those genome-engineering technologies alone are worth tens of billions of dollars,” says Lamm Lamm sees both groups as partners rather than competitors in the shared goal of conservation are going about their young lives unaware of the groundbreaking science behind their births and the promise they represent Romulus and Remus gamboled about their enclosure gnawing on bark they had found on the ground while keeping a discreet distance from the gawking humans “They have different personalities,” says McNickle “Romulus was a very brave pup and the first to go exploring on his own even when he was just a few days old Remus was much more reserved and would follow Romulus’ cues Remus has become the more confident of the two and the first to explore new things and new areas.” If the company succeeds in its mission to save existing animals from extinction and restore ones that walked the world well before the rise of the humans, Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi will be long remembered. One species, our own, is increasingly crowding out the millions of others that call the planet home, and Colossal is working to claim the power to reverse that—at least a little. “I think of that famous Teddy Roosevelt quote,” says James, paraphrasing the 26th President. “In the moment of any choice, the first thing to do is the right thing. The next thing to do is the wrong thing. The worst thing to do is nothing at all.” TIME may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website Offers may be subject to change without notice The box office success of Alien: Romulus last year has given the franchise a fresh dose of new life and director Fede Alvarez is currently hard at work on cracking a sequel Speaking with Empire Online this week Alvarez provides an update on Alien: Romulus 2 “Rodo [Sayagues] and I are working on that right now,” Alvarez tells Empire we can go into uncharted waters,” Alvarez continues As 20th Century Studios head Steve Asbell noted last year a sequel to Alien: Romulus would likely follow the characters played by Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson in Alien: Romulus who survived the harrowing events of last year’s movie Spaeny’s heroine Rain Carradine is essentially the Ripley of Alien: Romulus while Jonsson’s Andy is her android brother and to discover things that you’ve never seen before,” Alvarez further teases in his chat with Empire Online we definitely can make a sequel,” the filmmaker also notes a sequel to Romulus from Fede Alvarez isn’t 100% guaranteed but he’s hard at work trying to make it happen Stay tuned for more on all things Alien as we learn it In the meantime, Disney brings the franchise to the small screen with “Alien: Earth” this year the first ever Alien television series is coming to FX & Hulu in Summer 2025