Alien: Romulus director teases Easter eggs and tells fans to 'pay attention'

Alien: Romulus may be a new story within the sci-fi franchise that doesn't have a direct connection to the films that came before it, but director Fede Álvarez tells Yahoo UK there are Easter eggs all over the movie for fans to find.

The movie follows a ragtag group of scavengers who decide to travel to a derelict space station to score big and change their lives, only to come face-to-face with the franchise's terrifying lifeforms in the process. Set between Alien and Aliens, the director says the new film has plenty of nods to what came before that will delight old fans whilst not alienating (pun intended) new ones.

"They're everywhere," Álvarez says of the film's Easter eggs. "But they're ideally not distracting. They're not things that mentions to things that if you haven't seen any of the movies you will be thrown off, like 'what are they talking about here?'

"There's nothing that gets in the way of the enjoyment of the movie for a new audience, if they haven't seen any of them. But if you have, and you're a fan, you'll find them everywhere.

"I mean, they're everywhere but you have to pay attention, like read what a screen says, if there's a screen behind a character you got to read some of that screen [because] there's probably something that fans will go like: 'What? They're talking about this other character's uncle on the screen'."

Read more: Where does Alien: Romulus fit in the Alien timeline?

The Evil Dead filmmaker went on: "We really went above and beyond to make sure there's connections to everything for the fans. They can go hunting for them, for those Easter eggs, and they'll find them.

"I was thinking about doing a list to see how many there are, they're very precise, so people can start filling them in as they watch the movie to see if they really find them all, because there's some that are so specific."

What this could mean is anyone's guess, given where the film sits in the franchise it's safe to say that Sigourney Weaver won't be making an appearance but, Álvarez says, there's "plenty" of Easter eggs, including one that no one has noticed yet despite already being out in the world.

He explains: "There's one in particular that people haven't seen yet, it's actually in the trailer, there's a glimpse of it, and people haven't pick it up yet and when they do they're gonna lose their s**t."

Much like the characters in Alien: Romulus will have to do in the film when the Facehuggers and Xenomorphs begin their rampage — happy hunting, Alien fans.

Alien: Romulus is out in cinemas now.