It’s admirable that 20th Century Studios tried to tie together the disparate threads of its Alien franchise with Fede Álvarez’s Alien: Romulus. In 2024, we’re sure someone at the company believed audiences would flock to an Alien sequel that pulled together the most prominent ephemera from the series,

The legendary director tells PEOPLE about his art-school training and and why he’s still “filming on paper” before he steps behind the camera