Fans are already anticipating Joker 3, but director Todd Phillips says it won’t happen as “we’ve said what we wanted to say in this world.”

I doubt many expected Joker to be quite the success that it was, but after grossing over $1 billion worldwide (the first R-rated film to do so), it was only natural that there would be talk of a sequel. With a musical flair, Joker: Folie À Deux isn’t the follow-up fans were expecting, but it looks to be another engrossing deep dive into the madness of Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), complete with an animated opening sequence. We’re still a month and change away from the release of Joker: Folie À Deux, but some are already wondering if Joker 3 is in the cards.

Anything could happen, but I’d keep those expectations in check. Joker director Todd Phillips told Variety, “It was fun to play in this sort of sandbox for two movies, but I think we’ve said what we wanted to say in this world.” So, even if the sequel grosses another billion dollars, the chances of Joker 3 happening are slim. Plus, it was something of a minor miracle that Joaquin Phoenix returned for more, as he has never done a sequel before.

Although Arthur and Lee (Lady Gaga) frequently break into songs such as Get Happy, For Once in My Life, and That’s Life, Phillips isn’t totally sold on labelling the sequel as a full-blown musical. “Most of the music in the movie is really just dialogue,” Phillips said. “It’s just Arthur not having the words to say what he wants to say, so he sings them instead.” Phillips added, “I just don’t want people to think that it’s like ‘In the Heights,’ where the lady in the bodega starts to sing and they take it out onto the street, and the police are dancing. No disrespect, because I loved ‘In the Heights.’“

In addition to Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga, Joker: Folie À Deux also stars Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener, Jacob Lofland, and Harry Lawtey. Zazie Beetz also returns to reprise her role as Sophie Dumond from the first movie, a love interest for Arthur. Plot details are being kept under wraps, but it’s been said that much of the sequel will take place within Arkham Asylum, which is where we left Arthur in the last film. Joker: Folie à Deux will hit theaters on October 4th.

Ian McKellen says fat suit he wore for Player Kings saved him from more serious injuries during his fall, but he’s still in agonizing pain.

In June, Sir Ian McKellen was hospitalized after a fall off the stage during a performance of Player Kings at the Noël Coward Theatre in London. In an interview with Saga Magazine (via The Standard), McKellen said that while the fat suit he wore saved him from more serious injury, he’s still in “agonizing” pain from a chipped vertebrae and fractured wrist.

“My chipped vertebrae and fractured wrist are not yet healed. I avoid going out because I’m nervous someone might bump into me, and I’ve been dealing with agonizing pain in my shoulders due to the jolt my body took,” McKellen said. “But the fat suit I wore for Falstaff saved my ribs and other joints, so I consider myself lucky.“

McKellen continued, “I’ve relived that fall countless times. It was horrible. I thought it was the end of something. It was very upsetting. The end didn’t mean my death, but it felt like the end of my participation in the play.” While it was initially anticipated that the actor would be able to return to Player Kings, the production did move on without him. The 85-year-old actor added that he has to keep “telling myself I’m not too old to act. It was just a bloody accident. I didn’t lose consciousness, I hadn’t been dizzy, but I’ve not been able to return to the stage, and they’ve continued without me.“

Shortly after his accident, McKellen released a statement to thank fans for their support. “I want to thank everyone for their kind messages and support,” McKellen said. “Since the accident, during a performance of Player Kings last night, my injuries have been diagnosed and treated by a series of experts, specialists and nurses working for the National Health Service. To them, of course, I am hugely indebted. They have assured me that my recovery will be complete and speedy and I am looking forward to returning to work.“

McKellen has previously said that he has no intention of retiring so long as he remains healthy. One possible gig could see him reprise the role of Gandalf for the upcoming Gollum movie. The actor recently said that he has heard of the project but added, “There is no script, there is no offer, there is no plan.” Assuming everything falls into place, would he be willing to return to Middle-earth? “If I’m alive,” he said.

Robert Downey Jr. on the moment Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige offered him the role of Doctor Victor von Doom.

Marvel fans got the surprise of a lifetime at San Diego Comic-Con when it was revealed that Robert Downey Jr. would be playing Doctor Doom in Avengers: Doomsday, but the ball started rolling about a year ago when Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige sat down with the actor and his wife and producing partner, Susan Downey.

“Probably a year ago, because Feige and I have kept in touch,” Downey said in The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast. “We’re pals. Favreau and Feige and I have kept in touch. I’m close with the Russo brothers. We have other business we’re doing. So there’s this little group of fellow travelers, and I had this instinct that I wanted to go to Bob Iger. And I had an idea, outside of the cinematic universe, for how I could be of service to what’s going on in the parks and all their location-based energy. And Susan and I were sitting down with Feige at one point, and he said, ‘It just keeps occurring to me that, if you were to come back…’ And Susan was like, ‘Wait, wait, come back as what?’“

Downey continued, “And then we both realized, over time, that it was another thing that just disproves any doubt anyone could ever have about that guy. [He’s] a very sophisticated, creative thinker about, ‘How can we not go backwards? How can we not disappoint expectations? How can we continue to to beat expectations?’ And he brought up Victor von Doom, and I looked into [the] character, and I was like, ‘Wow.’ And later on, he goes, ‘Let’s get Victor von Doom right. Let’s get that right.’” Downey later met with Disney CEO Bob Iger, who told the actor that he liked the idea of him returning as Doctor Doom.

The actor kept the secret of his return as Doom from just about everyone, including his fellow Avengers, with Jeremy Renner saying, “The son of a bitch didn’t say anything to me!” Doom is expected to be replacing Kang as Marvel’s new big bad now that Jonathan Majors has been dropped from the franchise. Majors recently said that he was “heartbroken” to be replaced. Majors added that he “loves” the character of Kang, but “Doctor Doom is wicked.” When asked if he would still want to return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Kang, Majors said, “Hell yeah! Hell yeah! I love him. I love Kang. If that’s what the fans want, and that’s what Marvel wants, then let’s roll. Hell yeah.“

Avengers: Doomsday is slated for a May 1, 2026 release, followed by Avengers: Secret Wars on May 7, 2027.

Prime Video has dropped a teaser trailer for Secret Level, a video game anthology series from the folks who brought us Netflix’s Love, Death + Robots, and it sure looks like Keanu Reeves (or at least his likeness) will be featured in one of the episodes.

That certainly looks like our buddy Keanu. The episode in question has been confirmed to be set in the world of Armored Core, and the possible Keanu Reeves can actually be seen at two points in the Secret Level teaser, once at the :30 mark and again at the :51 mark. Prime Video hasn’t confirmed Reeves’ involvement in the series, as they said they aren’t making cast announcements at this time. Reeves is no stranger to video games, notably appearing in Cyberpunk 2077 as Johnny Silverhand. Speaking of Cyberpunk 2077, it was announced last year that CD Projekt Red was developing a live-action project based on the video game.

Tim Millar and Dave Wilson will serve as executive producers of the series, with Wilson also stepping up as the supervising director. “‘Secret Level’ weaves a tapestry of iconic games across multiple mediums, to tell a series of unique and captivating stories,” said Vernon Sanders, head of television for Amazon MGM Studios. “Created and led by Tim Miller, Blur Studio, and Supervising Director Dave Wilson, each episode will take our global Prime Video customers on a brand new journey with breathtaking animation and imaginative storytelling.“

The official synopsis for Secret Level reads: “Each episode of ‘Secret Level’ serves as a gateway to a new adventure, unlocking exciting worlds from beloved gaming classics and highly anticipated new titles. Prepare for an unforgettable journey, where Amazon MGM Studios and gaming’s finest unite in a first-of-its-kind event that brings together more game IP in a single series than has ever been done before.” Other video games that will appear in Secret Level include Concord, Crossfire, Exodus, Honor of Kings, Mega Man, New World: Aeternum, PAC-MAN, Sifu, Spelunky, The Outer Worlds, Unreal Tournament, and Warhammer 40,000.

Secret Level will premiere on Prime Video on December 10th.

Jennifer Lopez has filed for divorce from Ben Affleck, marking the end of their marriage after just two years.

In news that should come as no surprise considering the latest strife in the world of Bennifer 2.0 (gosh, remember that trend?), Jennifer Lopez has filed for divorce from Ben Affleck.

TMZ reports that Jennifer Lopez made the move to file her official split from Ben Affleck on August 20th, which turns out to be the second anniversary of their more formal wedding (having wed in Las Vegas the month prior). Traditionally, the second anniversary gift is cotton, which is appropriate since the two are sleeping under separate sheets now.

Lopez and Affleck got married in August 2022, a full 20 years after they first made tabloid headlines and were branded the “it couple” of the century. While that romance resulted in plenty of late night fodder and constant paparazzi attention, even worse, it gave us Gigli…Now, we here at JoBlo.com aren’t normally ones for conspiracy theories, but there might be a link between that notorious flop reemerging on The Criterion Channel earlier this year and the split between Lopez and Affleck. The two also worked together on Kevin Smith’s Jersey Girl.

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck were engaged at the time of their 2004 breakup. Since they never made it to the altar all those years ago, they have at least avoided the marry-remarry trend of couples like Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Affleck had previously been married to Jennifer Garner from 2005-2018, while this marked the fourth marriage for Lopez, having most recently tied the knot with singer Marc Antony, who she divorced in 2014.

The relationship between Lopez and Affleck was noted to be on the rocks for quite some time up until the divorce filing, with the two taking separate trips and being seen without wedding rings. As it turns out, even though Lopez officially filed the papers this week, documentation lists the separation itself as being back in April.

As for work the couple put out during their rekindling, Jennier Lopez released her first album in a decade, This Is Me…Now, while Ben Affleck most notably returned to directing with Air.

Are you surprised that Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck are splitting? What do you remember from the original Bennifer saga? Drop your thoughts in the comments section below!

Images give the first look at We Bury the Dead, a survival thriller directed by Zak Hilditch and starring Daisy Ridley

Back in October, we heard that Star Wars sequel trilogy star Daisy Ridley (who is set to return to the Star Wars universe for another film that is meant to launch “the next chapter” of the franchise) had signed on to star in We Bury the Dead, a survival thriller from Zak Hilditch, the director of the Stephen King adaptation 1922 (which featured an incredible performance from star Thomas Jane). That film has since made its way through production and will be having its world premiere soon, as well as a special preview event at Australia’s Adelaide Film Festival in November – so, in anticipation of those events, Variety was able to get their hands on a batch of first look images! You can check them out in this article.

Scripted by Hilditch, We Bury the Dead is said to be “a story about grief, loss, and the undead.” Ridley takes on the role of Ava, a desperate woman whose husband is missing in the aftermath of a catastrophic military experiment. Hoping to find him alive, Ava joins a “body retrieval unit,” but her search takes a chilling turn when the corpses she’s burying start showing signs of life.

Ridley is joined in the cast by Brenton Thwaites (Titans) and Mark Coles Smith (Mystery Road: Origin).

The project was fully financed by Screen Australia, Screenwest, Lotterywest, the WA Regional Screen Fund, and Gramercy Park Media. We Bury the Dead is being produced by Kelvin Munro and Grant Sputore of The Penguin Empire, as well as Ross Dinerstein of Campfire Studios and Joshua Harris and Mark Fasano of Gramercy Park Media. Nathan Klingher and Ford Corbett are executive producing.

When We Bury the Dead was first announced, Sputore provided the following statement: “We’re thrilled to join forces with Zak and Campfire on this project. Zak is uniquely gifted when it comes to making movies that are just as moving as they are terrifying. Bringing one of his projects to our home state of Western Australia is especially exciting.“

Hilditch had this to say: “Having Daisy play the role of Ava is an absolute dream come true. She embodies the perfect mix of vulnerability, grit, and determination that Ava exudes throughout the film.“

Does We Bury the Dead sound interesting to you? Take a look at the images, then let us know by leaving a comment below.

The Furiosa star returns to Netflix after her wildly popular series The Queen’s Gambit was a hit to lead in Bella Mackie’s adaptation.

Deadline reports that Furiosa star Anya Taylor-Joy is returning to Netflix television for a new series that’s based on Bella Mackie’s How to Kill Your Family. Taylor-Joy would recently appear in the hit Netflix original series The Queen’s Gambit, which became Netflix’s biggest scripted limited series to date with a record-setting 62 million households watching in the series’ first 28 days. That show was always meant to be a limited series and Taylor-Joy would claim to always be inquired about another season. “Not to disappoint anybody, but we just never thought about it. It was always a sapling to tree transition,” Taylor-Joy said. “You see her grow, you leave her in a good place. So we were genuinely surprised when people were like, ‘Where’s season 2?’ That being said, I adore the entire team that made it and I would jump at the chance to work with them again.” 

While The Queen’s Gambit season 2 may not be happening, Taylor-Joy talked to Netflix about her interest in this new show, “As soon as I turned the last page, I knew I had to be a part of bringing this story to life. After some (light) stalking of the inimitable Bella Mackie, I could not be more thrilled to be collaborating with the team that is executive producers Sally Woodward Gentle, Lizzie Rusbridger, and Emma. I am looking forward to getting our hands even dirtier.” Bella Mackie would add, “It’s been thrilling to watch the characters I wrote take on new life under this magnificent creative team. Anya is the most perfect fit to play Grace: I often think she understands her better than I do.”

The synopsis of the series reads,
“Grace is the forgotten child of Simon Artemis, a merciless billionaire. After a heartbreaking rejection, Grace decides to exact revenge. But will this deadly scheme take even more from Grace than she’s already lost?”

Mackie will be on board as an executive producer along with Emma Moran, Sally Woodward Gentle, Lizzie Rusbridger and Lee Morris for Sid Gentle Film, while Taylor-Joy will also be an executive producer for the production company LadyKiller.

Meanwhile, subscribers of Max can now catch Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga on the streaming service. The prequel garnered acclaim from critics and audiences, but would not be one of the year’s summer hits as it underperformed at the box office and was one of many titles that hit digital on-demand weeks after it screened in theaters. The synopsis reads, “As the world fell, young Furiosa is snatched from the Green Place of Many Mothers and falls into the hands of a great Biker Horde led by the Warlord Dementus. Sweeping through the Wasteland they come across the Citadel presided over by the Immortan Joe. While the two Tyrants war for dominance, Furiosa must survive many trials as she puts together the means to find her way home.” The story takes place over a span of fifteen years.

About the Author

E.J. is a News Editor at JoBlo, as well as a Video Editor, Writer, and Narrator for some of the movie retrospectives on our JoBlo Originals YouTube channel, including Reel Action, Revisited and some of the Top 10 lists. He is a graduate of the film program at Missouri Western State University with concentrations in performance, writing, editing and directing.

The darkly comedic crime drama series Obituary, filmed in Ireland and available to watch on Hulu, is getting a season 2

After airing on RTE in Ireland last September, all six episodes of the darkly comedic crime drama Obituary made their way over to the Hulu streaming service in November. Now, Variety reports that Obituary season 2 has been given the greenlight and, like its predecessor, is expected to consist of six episodes.

Written by Ray Lawlor (Le Ceangal) and directed by John Hayes (Dublin Murders) and Oonagh Kearney (Vardy vs. Rooney), Obituary has the following synopsis: 24-year-old Elvira Clancy is feeling a little unfulfilled, although she adores her new job writing obituaries, but when her newspaper falls on hard times and her boss cuts her salary, she finds herself being paid per obituary overnight. When she “accidentally” kills a nasty piece of work in the town, she discovers she might have a previously untapped bloodlust!

She relishes using ever more crafty methods to kill off the town’s unpleasant residents while making them look like accidents. Stalk. Kill. Publish. Repeat. Unfortunately, a wrench lands in the works – the paper hires a suspicious new crime correspondent and she really, really likes him…

Nell Green produced the first season with APC Studios and Magamedia. Laurent Boissel and Paddy Hayes served as executive producers. Lawlor has described Obituary as “a fun, darkly twisted drama that proudly allows me to transport some of the wit and characters I encounter every day in my hometown of Castlebar into the living rooms of the Irish people.” Lawlor is now scripting season 2, with APC Studios and Magamedia remaining involved and Hulu contributing funding.

The show stars Siobhán Cullen, whose previous credits include The Dry, Origin, The Long Call, Paula, and Bodkin. Cullen is joined in the cast by Michael Smiley (Luther) as Elvira’s boss Ward Clancy, Ronan Raftery (Gangs of London) as crime reporter Emerson Stafford, Danielle Galligan (The Great) as Mallory Markum, and David Ganly (Moon Knight) as Hughie Burns. Also on the cast list are Michael Hough (Murdoch Mysteries), Noni Stapleton (Harry Wild), Conan Sweeny (Smother), Lalor Roddy (The Devil’s Doorway), Dagmar Döring (Finding Joy), and newcomer Éabha Moore.

 Have you watched the first season of Obituary, and are you glad to hear there’s going to be a season 2? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

A little while back, we ran a special WTF episode about the 1979 Disney movie, The Black Hole, an uncommonly adult film for the family-friendly studio. It kicked off an experiment for the studio to move into adult fare, eventually spawning no less than three subsidiaries that produced some of the most influential movies of the 80s, 90s and 2000s. These off-shoots paved the way for Disney’s place as the most powerful motion picture studio in the world, with them owning Lucasfilm, Pixar and the MCU. This summer, the Mouse House released an uncommonly bold MCU movie, Deadpool & Wolverine, which sported an R-rating, and has done blockbuster business. Many are wondering if perhaps this could have the way for Disney to tackle some adult fare, but it wouldn’t be the first time, and maybe now is the time to bring back Touchstone Pictures.

So, what’s Touchstone Pictures some of you may be asking?

Jump back to 1983, when Disney put out a now obscure comedy called Trenchcoat, starring Airplane’s Robert Hayes and Superman’s Margot Kidder. A comic mystery, it was produced by Walt Disney Productions but was considered so adult that the company released it under a subsidiary called Buena Vista Distribution. The name Walt Disney was nowhere to be found in the film. The movie flopped, but other more-adult-oriented Disney films like Tron and Never Cry Wolf did pretty well, yet fell short of their full potential. The common thought was that the Walt Disney brand was considered too childish and that whenever people saw the company name, they assumed they would be seeing a kid’s movie.

In 1984, the company released their first movie under Touchstone, which the company intended to be their more adult-oriented arm. That film was Splash, which became a smash hit, launching the careers of stars Tom Hanks, Daryl Hannah and John Candy, and director Ron Howard. Despite their early success, the first year or so of operations for Touchstone was rocky, with them producing movies like Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend and My Science Project, which felt like slightly risqué Disney films and nothing more. 

Their fortunes began to turn when they focused on lower-budget R-rated comedies starring people who, arguably, were considered washed up. That’s why you had actors like Richard Dreyfuss and Bette Midler lead films like Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Ruthless People and Stakeout, all of which were smash-hits that revitalized careers. Suddenly, they were hip.

This led to the golden age of Touchstone, with them producing the Martin Scorsese classic The Color of Money, Good Morning Vietnam, Cocktail, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and so many others. The studio became such a success that Disney opened another subsidiary, Hollywood Pictures, which was initially a pipeline for lower-budget fare like Encino Man, but eventually released larger films like Judge Dredd, Dangerous Minds, The Rock and The Sixth Sense. Finally, Hollywood Pictures was folded into Touchstone, but, as Disney itself became willing to release PG-13 rated movies on their own, such as the Pirates of the Caribbean series and the Marvel films, and R-rated adult dramas became a business the studio no longer had any interest in, they folded. 

With Touchstone only a memory, on the 100th anniversary of Disney, we thought it would be fun to make a list of 10 underrated, quasi-obscure Touchstone movies worth checking out.

Ruthless People

If people enjoy watching Danny DeVito play the notorious Frank Reynolds on It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, they should check out 1986’s Ruthless People, which almost serves as a prequel to that show. In it, he plays a heartless business person who plots to do away with his rich, shrewish wife, played by a memorably unhinged Bette Midler. Lucky for him, she gets kidnapped, and being the bastard he is, he refuses to pay the ransom, hoping they just kill her. Yet, the kidnappers prove to be a likable young couple (Judge Reinhold and Helen Slater) who actually rebuild Midler’s self-esteem, and eventually, the three turn the tables on him. It’s a hilarious little movie.

Stakeout

This John Badham action-comedy was a favorite of mine as a kid. Still, it is perhaps not all that PC in 2023, with it mainly about two horny cops on a stakeout who, to their delight, discover that the frequently naked woman they’re spying on is the smoking-hot Madeleine Stowe. Yet, the movie is a ton of fun, with Richard Dreyfus cast against type as a heroic male lead, while young Emilio Estevez tries to look grown up by wearing a cop stache. One of the best things about Stakeout is how well it juggles the comedy and the action, veering back and forth from zany antics to hard-R eighties action with aplomb. Aidan Quinn also makes for a menacing bad guy. That said, the sequel, Another Stakeout, really sucks.

An Innocent Man

Tom Selleck plays a wrongly accused man set up by two corrupt cops and spends three years in a super-max prison. The experience changes him from a gentle airline mechanic to a hardened killer looking for revenge, and the film is surprisingly hard-edged for a 1980s Tom Selleck vehicle. David Rasche from Veep, Succession and Sledge Hammer makes for a loathsome villain, while F. Murray Abraham is excellent as the lifer who shows new fish Selleck the ropes. Think of this as a less grim Shot Caller, albeit one with a Hollywood-style happy ending.

Captain Ron

Kurt Russell sends up Snake Plisken as an eye-patching-wearing boat captain hired by Martin Short’s harried family man. This movie has a lot of hilarious bits, with Russell effective in a rare comic turn. Notably, Russell and Short became lifelong friends after this was made, which seems a recurring thing for the always genial Short.

Alive

Director J. A Bayona’s Society of the Snow was a major hit for Netflix earlier this year, with it telling the true story of the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crash in the Andes. But, it wasn’t the first. The 1993 version put out by Touchstone holds up well thirty years later. While Ethan Hawke may not be the first name that comes to mind when making a film about the Uruguayan rugby team that crash-landed in the Andes and were forced to resort to cannibalism to survive, this is nonetheless a terrific movie. It’s a highly empathetic tale of survival, beautifully directed by Frank Marshall. 

The Program

This film was a hot-button topic when it came out in 1993. A dark examination of the pressures of College football, the movie contained an infamous scene where players sat on a lane divider in traffic as a macho stunt. This scene was excised from all prints while the movie was still in theaters after a couple of teens got killed copying it. While that tragedy led to the film being somewhat shelved by the studio, it’s a pretty thrilling sports film with great performances by the late James Caan and the hulking Andrew Bryniarski. 

Summer of Sam

Spike Lee’s epic examination of the hysteria surrounding the Son of Sam murders that rocked New York City in the summer of 1977 ranks as one of his finest films. If you ever wanted to see what a film like Goodfellas or Boogie Nights would have been like had it been directed by Lee, this is the movie for you. John Leguizamo gives the performance of his life in the lead role. At the same time, Mira Sorvino, Jennifer Esposito and Adrien Brody are all so good that, were the movie better received in ’99, I think they all would have gotten Oscar nods. This is a legit forgotten masterpiece. 

Enemy of the State

While it was a box office hit in 1998, Enemy of the State remains one of the more obscure entries in the combined filmographies of Tony Scott, Will Smith and Jerry Bruckheimer. This is a terrific nineties update of classic seventies paranoia thrillers, with Gene Hackman stealing the show as a character that might just be the guy he played in the Francis Ford Coppola classic The Conversation. 

The Count of Monte Cristo

This old-fashioned swashbuckler was a sleeper hit in the winter of 2002. A fresh take on the Alexander Dumas classic, the now controversial Jim Caviezel plays our swashbuckling hero, Edmond Dantes, who is framed for a crime he didn’t commit and escapes decades of imprisonment to wreak havoc on his accusers. A very young Henry Cavill plays his son.

Reign of Fire

One would think that a post-apocalyptic dragon movie starring Christian Bale, Matthew McConaughey and Gerard Butler would be better known, but this movie sank like a stone in the summer of 2002. While the CGI hasn’t held up well, this movie is a total blast, and I’m convinced it was one of the reasons why Christopher Nolan wanted Bale to play the lead in Batman Begins. 

If you’re avoiding Alien: Romulus SPOILERS, turn away, because we’re about to talk about the ending – which the studio wasn’t sure about

If you’re avoiding Alien: Romulus SPOILERS, turn away, because we’re about to talk about the ending – which the studio wasn’t sure about, and which director Fede Alvarez compares to the ending of his feature directorial debut, the 2013 take on Evil Dead.

It has been said that the story Alvarez and co-writer Rodo Sayagues crafted for Alien: Romulus is not directly connected to the other films in the Alien franchise (which isn’t exactly true), but it’s not ignoring any of the other entries, either. Alvarez has been clear about the fact that his story takes place within the established franchise continuity. In fact, it slots right in between the events of Alien and Aliens. It has the following official logline: The sci-fi/horror-thriller takes the phenomenally successful “Alien” franchise back to its roots: While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe.

The cast includes Cailee Spaeny (Priscilla), Isabela Merced (Madame Web), David Jonsson (Industry), Archie Renaux (Shadow and Bone), Spike Fearn (The Batman), and Aileen Wu (Away from Home).

If you’ve seen the movie, you saw the characters played by those actors deal with facehuggers and xenomorphs, as expected… but then things take a turn toward the end and we get a last minute sequence involving a brand new hybrid creature called The Offspring. During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Alvarez revealed that the studio questioned that ending, which he sees as a version of the same thing he already did at the end of his Evil Dead.

Alvarez told THR, “All my movies have a fourth act. It’s the way we write. There’s a moment where the movie feels like it’s over, and then there’s a fourth act, which is fitting because Alien has a fourth act as well. You could even argue that Aliens has a bit of a fourth act with its last set piece. It’s when you think it’s all done and the movie could have ended, but it just gives you a last set piece that tends to go to really extreme places. Last night (at the premiere), I felt like that’s what was happening. We got into the end of the third act and everybody was relaxing and going, ‘Okay, it wasn’t as scary as I thought it was going to be.’ But if they turned around and looked at me, I’m taking my jacket off and rolling up my sleeves, because I’m about to really give it to them and go where it has to go. And, by contrast, it hopefully feels terrifying and intense. I could do that the whole movie, but it would be unbearable. It would be too much. It would be one of those experiences where you go, ‘I can’t do that again.’ But, because of that good dose at the end, it hopefully gets you out of the theater with your heart beating. I’m looking to make you feel things and give you emotions that stay with you. If I give you a script and you read it and go, ‘Let’s do it!’ then I feel like I failed. I need the studio to go, ‘Are you sure about this? Do you really want to do that?’ This is what happens with me and the studios on each one of my movies. They asked me about many things in Don’t Breathe and the blood rain in Evil Dead and were like, ‘How can we even do that? How are we going to do all that stuff?’ So when I get pushback, that’s really when I go, ‘Okay, that’s good. We’re on track. The studio is pushing back on it.’ And they did [push back] at the beginning [with regard to The Offspring], but not because they didn’t like it. They just thought, ‘Is it too much? Do we really have to go there?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, now that you said that we shouldn’t, I know that I will.’ So that’s exactly what we did here. If you’re given an Alien movie by a corporation that is owned by Disney and they immediately say, ‘Yeah, let’s make it,’ then you are failing somehow. So we really pushed it to the limit, and I’m glad we did.“

Speaking with Collider, Alvarez added, “If you look at Evil Dead, it is exactly the same ending. An abomination rises from hell. It is actually similar. I would love to see a meme of The Abomination and The Offspring sharing a coffee and a cigarette. They’re very similar creatures and approached in a quite similar way technically. I knew that I wanna make sure that I would save the most radical, the most scary stuff for the end. I had this perverse enjoyment of imagining the audience thinking the movie’s over, having heard it gets really scary and thinking it wasn’t that scary, and then suddenly an alarm triggered — boom — and they go, ‘Oh f—k, here we go.’ That’s what I felt last night, particularly because I’m happy that people have been hyping that ending.“

What did you think of the Alien: Romulus ending and the addition of The Offspring? Let us know by leaving a comment below.