SDCC 2024: Crazy New Alien: Romulus Footage

Friday night at San Diego Comic-Con, Hall H was infested by aliens. Facehuggers jumping across the room. Xenomorphs chomping in our faces. Yes, these things happened on screen, but it was thrilling nonetheless.

The Alien franchise returned to Comic-Con this year to talk all about the upcoming Alien: Romulus, directed by Fede Alvarez and starring Cailee Spaeny. They were on hand along with co-stars David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn, and Aileen Wu. However, since a final trailer was released mere days ago, what could they possibly show?

Well, two scenes which were previous shown at CinemaCon (read about them here), and a new one that both enhanced the Alien mythology while also being incredibly graphic. Read on if you want to see all about it, but if you want to save yourself for next month, consider this your final warning…

As the scene opens, we see Isabela Merced’s character Kay on the ground, knocked out cold. She wakes up and slow climbs down a ladder to the rest of her ship. She creeps down the hallway. A loud BOOM comes out of nowhere scaring us. She steps in something and we see it’s the skin of a small Xenomorph, which is never good.

On a nearby wall, we see that very organic-looking almost rib-like structure. In the other Alien movies, we see these all the time, but never knew exactly what that are, or were. Now we know. There’s an opening on it that looks, well… let’s say it’s pretty vaginal. Kay begins to step closer when Bjorn (Spike Fearn) grabs her from behind. He covers her mouth, telling her to be quiet. He carefully walks down the very atmospheric hallway and grabs, basically, a cattle prod. He lights it up and shoves it up into that aforementioned vaginal opening.

Chaos ensues. There are sparks, screaming, fires, just general madness. He pulls it out and sees that it has been burned through. Acid drips from the opening. A spike pops out of the opening and quickly–pop–skewers him in the head, killing him. After he drops, a full Xenomorph begins to emerge from the opening. The head first, then the hands. The fingers slowly open. Merced’s character has been watching this and tries and tries to get out but the door won’t open. Finally, the full Alien emerges and it’s pissed. The door opens, she runs through it, trips, and falls down a shaft.

That went into a fuller trailer, much like the ones we’ve previously seen. Then, in the room at Comic-Con, as the panel was about to speak after the trailer, the lights cut. Here’s what happened next:

Alien: Romulus opens on August 16.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.