Alien: Romulus director reveals an insane connection to The Last of Us games and show

Alien: Romulus is out now in theaters, and by all accounts the latest installment of the Alien franchise is a success. Made on an $80 million budget by Evil Dead director Fede Álvarez, Romulus has passed the $225 million mark at the global box office and is still going strong. Deadline reports that it has already made around 94% of that the previous Alien movie, 2017's Alien: Covenant, made in its entire run, and that movie cost more to make. Not bad at all!

There are a lot of factors that are helping Alien: Romulus do as well as it has, but for my money a big part of it is that this film leans into the franchise's horror roots, delivering a fairly straightforward story about a group of desperate young scavengers who end up stranded on a derelict space station that becomes infested by the iconic xenomorphs. Álvarez didn't try to do something wildly meta like Ridley Scott did with Alien: Covenant or Prometheus, instead opting to give audiences an experience much more in-line with the earlier films in the franchise. Considering that there are generations of younger moviegoers who never had the chance to see the first few Alien films in theaters, it seems likely that Romulus is opening the franchise up in a pretty significant way.

The love Álvarez and his team had for the Alien series is obvious watching Romulus; the movie is filled with easter eggs both big and small, and ties to plenty of the other films. But Alien wasn't the only inspiration Álvarez had for Romulus. After one fan asked on Twitter/X whether Álvarez had played the hit post-apocalyptic video game The Last of Us, the director revealed that not only had he played it, but the game had a surprising connection to Alien: Romulus. Mild spoilers ahead for both Romulus and The Last of Us Part II.

Isabela Merced's Alien: Romulus character was inspired by Dina from The Last of Us

"Fun fact: I was playing The Last of Us Part II while writing Alien: Romulus," Álvarez wrote. "The story of a pregnant Dina made me think of having the character of Kay be pregnant too. Then I cast Isabela Merced to play Kay... A year later she gets cast to play Dina on the HBO show... True story."

Kay, the character played by Merced in Alien: Romulus, is indeed pregnant, which goes about as well for her as you'd expect given the horrifying nature of the Alien movies. Some aspects of that pregnancy are even reminiscent of Dina, such as the fact that she tries to downplay her connection to the father to the other characters. I was reminded of Dina more than once while watching Merced in the movie, so it's beyond cool for Álvarez to come out and confirm that Kay was in fact inspired by her.

As Álvarez said, Merced has since been cast to play that very character in the second season of HBO's The Last of Us show. So Merced is now playing the character on The Last of Us show that inspired her character in Alien: Romulus, which is a pretty mind-blowing synchronicity. The Last of Us season 2 seemingly wrapped filming last week, so we'll get to see her as Dina sometime in 2025.

It's possible that there are other elements of Alien: Romulus that were similarly inspired by Álvarez's time playing The Last of Us Part II, but the director is keeping tight-lipped about it. One fan pointed out that another character, Navarro (played by Aileen Wu), bears a striking resemblance to a Last of Us Part II character named Lev. Álvarez dodged answering, leaving the fan with a gif from the SNL Papyrus sketch where comedian Kyle Mooney gleefully closes the blinds on a rain-soaked Ryan Gosling as he shouts, "I know what you did!"

Whether Navarro was inspired at all by Lev or not, it's still cool to hear about connections between Alien: Romulus and The Last of Us. And to make things even more meta, the character of Lev in The Last of Us Part II was inspired by a character named Lev from City of Thieves, a book written by none other than Game of Thrones showrunner David Benioff. These artists just keep inspiring each other, and we all reap the benefits!

Alien: Romulus is out now in theaters, so you can go see Isabela Merced as Kay in the movie and get hyped for what she's going to bring to Dina in The Last of Us season 2.

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