• The first trailers for Alien: Romulus and Venom: The Last Dance have been released.
• Alien: Romulus arrives on 16th August as the latest in the franchise.
• Venom: The Last Dance launches in October as the finale of these Venom movies.

It is a bumper week for formless black entities from space as the first trailers for both Alien: Romulus and Venom: The Last Dance have been released.

Alien: Romulus is the more recent of the two and it has the unenviable job of getting people excited about the Alien franchise again after quite a few years of forgettable entries.

It actually does quite a good job at that by injecting some actual horror and suspense into our first look at this movie. This return to what made the series great isn’t just our impression from the trailer, but the outright goal of the movie:

“‘Alien: Romulus’ 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… Fede Alvarez (‘Evil Dead,’ ‘Don’t Breathe’) directs from a screenplay he wrote with frequent collaborator Rodo Sayagues (‘Don’t Breathe 2’) based on characters created by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett. ‘Alien: Romulus’ is produced by Ridley Scott (‘Napoleon’), who directed the original ‘Alien’ and produced and directed the series’ entries ‘Prometheus’ and ‘Alien: Covenant’,” the official description reads, in part.

While we’re not the biggest fans of the “no one can hear you in space” cliché that the trailer ends on, we’re still excited for this one and we only have to wait a couple more months until its 16th August release.

While there are endless listicles and clickbait sites going around trying to catch Easter eggs, references and small details, the one that stuck out for us was at 01:38 where a character’s eyes roll back and reveal completely white eyes. This has us thinking that this character is a synthetic and not a human. Synthetics have had large roles in the movies, especially those starring Michael Fassbender, so we’re intrigued to see how this concept is used in Romulus, if at all.

Released before the new Alien trailer is the one for Venom: The Last Dance. As the last Sony Venom movie with Tom Hardy it will be interesting to see how this trilogy ends.

The overall reception to this one is surprisingly positive despite the fact that these movies have been a real rollercoaster in terms of quality. In our review of the first movie from 2018 we called the affair “joyless black goo” and the 2021 sequel Let There Be Carnage also failed to impress us.

And, to be honest, this trailer doesn’t have us at all convinced that the third movie will be any better. The acting, effects, tone and what we see of the plot all look… bad. Sorry Venom fans. All of that doesn’t even consider the inconsistencies this trailer represents, such as the presence of Chiwetel Ejiofor as a new character (he already played Mordo in the MCU) and the strand of Venom left behind that this character captures.

Maybe all of that doesn’t matter because these Venom movies make serious money and this trailer ends with a Venomized horse which everyone really loves. Listen, we’re not spoilsports here, but we won’t be happy until there’s a live action Venomized T-rex that was made famous in the comics. Maybe that’s a bit too wild even for the Venom movies and we can see that in Deadpool & Wolverine next month.

“In Venom: The Last Dance, Tom Hardy returns as Venom, one of Marvel’s greatest and most complex characters, for the final film in the trilogy. Eddie and Venom are on the run. Hunted by both of their worlds and with the net closing in, the duo are forced into a devastating decision that will bring the curtains down on Venom and Eddie’s last dance,” reads the movie’s description.

The trailer ends by telling us that Venom: The Last Dance is slated for released in October this year. Some sites have narrowed that date down to 25th October and we can confirm that date based on theatrical release schedules shared with us by distributors in South Africa.