Disney’s Alien franchise movie from director Fede Álvarez begins filming in early 2023. Ridley Scott’s terrifying 1979 film about a deep space crew battling a relentless alien menace has come to be regarded as a screen classic. And the same can indeed be said about James Cameron’s 1986 Alien sequel, appropriately titled Aliens. But “classic” is not necessarily a word that would be used to describe subsequent films in the Alien series, and indeed the franchise has been in limbo ever since the 2017 release of Alien: Covenant, which flopped at the box office with only $240 million taken worldwide.

But now Alien is getting another chance at life thanks to Disney, who acquired the long-running sci-fi franchise when they bought out Fox. Alien: Covenant director Scott is still on-board as a producer, but directorial duties for the reboot have been taken on by Evil Dead helmer Álvarez. And now there’s another piece of news to report on Disney’s attempt at an Alien resurrection. According to Production List, the newest Alien is set to begin filming in Budapest on February 6, 2023. The same source also reports the film’s working title as Alien: Romulus.

UPDATE: 2023/03/03 16:45 EST BY FARIBA REZWAN

New update on Alien's filming start date

According to THR, Disney's Alien will now begin filming on March 9 in Budapest.

Related: Alien's New Movie Isn't As Big Of A Risk As It Seems

Everything We Know About Fede Álvarez's Alien Movie

Casting for Disney’s Alien project is still ongoing, but it was recently reported that Cailee Spaeny (Pacific Rim: Uprising) was in talks to star. In addition to taking on directorial duties, Álvarez will pen the Alien: Romulus script along with his Evil Dead writing partner Rodo Sayagues. Disney settled on Álvarez to lead the Alien franchise into the future after a previous project headed up by Neill Blomkamp failed to get off the ground. And there is at this time another Alien universe project in development in the form of an FX TV series headed up by Fargo showrunner Noah Hawley.

The small screen indeed seems to be the future for the Alien franchise, as Alien: Romulus is being developed as a Hulu movie, following the example set by 2022’s highly successful Predator franchise reboot Prey. Story details on the new Alien movie are obviously being kept under wraps for the time being, but the new movie is said not to be connected to previous films in the series. The synopsis for the movie shared on Production List says only, “An original standalone feature based the original sci-fi horror movie released in 1979.”

Can The New Alien Duplicate Prey’s Success In Resurrecting A Franchise

Dan Trachtenberg’s Predator prequel Prey proved that it is possible to wring new life out of a seemingly moribund sci-fi/action franchise, if one is willing to take a new angle on the material. Of course, it was a major switch for Prey to center on a female protagonist the way it did (and many Predator fans didn't appreciate the gender-swap). But Alien has a leg-up in this regard, as the series has always revolved around female main characters, going back to the days of Sigourney Weaver as Ripley. Disney and 20th Century are surely hoping that their new Alien team can come up with a new story as compelling as the one Trachtenberg told with Prey. And Alien fans are right there with them when it comes to praying that the Xenomorph still has legs as a sci-fi movie monster.

More: What Disney's New Alien Movie Must Do To Fix The Franchise

Source: Production List