Next year's as yet officially untitled Alien movie has been applauded by director Ridley Scott, who made the classic 1979 original and two spin-offs.
Don't Breathe filmmaker Fede Álvarez told Guillermo del Toro as much at this week's DGA Latino Summit, having recently screened his Xenomorphic horror reboot for Scott.
"He walks into the room and he did say, 'Fede, what can I say? It's f**king great,'" he recalled, according to Entertainment Weekly.
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"For me it was like... My family knows it was one of the best moments of my life to have a master like him, who I admired so much, to even watch a movie I made... but particularly something like this... and talk to me for an hour about what he liked about it.
"One of the best compliments he said was, 'The dialogue is great. Are you the writer?' Yes!" he added.
Álvarez, who also directed 2018's The Girl in the Spider's Web, shared the importance of hearing feedback face-to-face.
"Even if he was gonna say, 'You destroyed my legacy,' I wanted to be in front of him and see him in the eye. I didn't want to get an email where it says 'Ridley says...'
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"Everyone gave me the heads-up that Ridley is really tough," Álvarez said.
"He was really tough on Blade Runner [2049], which I thought was a masterpiece, and he had issues with it because it's really hard for him because [the original is] his work.
"I asked him about the new Top Gun: [Maverick] and he's like 'eh.' I'm like, 'What are you talking about?' And he was like, 'My brother [Tony Scott's] was original, and this is like eh.' He really respected it, but you could see how tough he was. So I was like, 'There's no way I win this one.'"
How wrong he turned out to be.
The next Alien is due out in cinemas August 16, 2024.
Reporter, Digital Spy
Dan is a freelance entertainment journalist. Beginning his writing career in 2014, Dan's work first graced the pages of cult publications Starburst magazine and Little White Lies before moving onto Total Film, Digital Spy, NME and Yahoo Entertainment.
In the film and TV universe, he kneels at the altar of Jim Carrey, Daniel Plainview, Mike Ehrmantraut and Paulie Walnuts.
