‘Alien: Romulus’ director shares “great” Ridley Scott advice that Martin Scorsese also follows

nme.com:

Don’t Breathe) releases his new Alien sequel, the seventh film in the sci-fi horror series, this Friday (August 16) – and he’s given fans a sneak peek into the process during an exclusive interview with NME.Set between the violent events of Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986), Alien: Romulus comes from a screenplay by Alvarez and co-writer Rodo Sayagues – but the pair also had help from franchise father Ridley Scott, who directed the original.After an initial meeting to discuss the “broad strokes” of the story, Scott was “really supportive”, Alvarez said.

He also shared a few pearls of wisdom, carefully gleaned from 50 years in the industry.“He said the director should not be editorial all the time because you lose objectivity with your film,” revealed Alvarez. “If you can stop looking at it for a while and come back to it, you will make it so much better.

So I did that during the [Christmas] holidays. I took a month off from the movie and went away and came back… That was great advice he gave me.”Scott’s contemporary, Martin Scorsese, has also been known to enjoy long breaks during production. “I heard he purposefully takes six months in the middle of the process just to be objective,” added Alvarez, “and then he comes back to finalise it.

It’s important because if you lose perspective about what the thing actually is you cannot make a good film.”Like many of the other titles in the series, Romulus follows the crew of an exploratory spacecraft as they discover a derelict station – and the terrifying, bloodthirsty Xenomorph monster that lurks within it.