The similarities between
Romulus and
The Last of Us are not coincidental, Fede Alvarez has been pretty open about how the games influenced
Romulus. He even revealed that Dina's arc from
The Last of Us Part 2 gave him the idea to also make Kay pregnant in the film, he then cast Isabela Merced in the role. A year later, Isabela ended up being cast as Dina in season 2 of
HBO's The Last of Us.
After the success of Romulus and Fede's comments about The Last of Us' influence on him, he was invited to Naughty Dog's studio by Neil Druckmann, one of the creators and lead writer of
The Last of Us games. Neil made an interesting remark on his social media about the Fede's visit, “Got to hang and chat storytelling with this cool cat. Don’t forget about your NDA!”
I'm sure
The Last of Us also influenced Fede's decision when casting Rain as well, it was hard to not notice the striking similarities between Cailee and Ellie when I watched the film. What shocked me the most is that after doing a google search on Cailee, I found out she actually did audition for the role of Ellie in the HBO series, among other names like Sophia Lillis, Kiernan Shipka and yet lost the role to Bella Ramsey. Needless to say it's probably one of the biggest casting misses ever. I'm sure the producers over at HBO probably regret not casting her, now that she is quickly rising in popularity and the majority of people wish she would've been cast in the role, but at the time they were casting for the show, in 2020, Cailee was relatively unknown but everyone knew Lyanna Mormont from
Game of Thrones, that likely helped Bella secure the role. I don't think her age would've been too distracting in Season 1, since this is what she looked like when they were casting Ellie for the show.
But all of this is really just a big "What if?" and is detracting from the topic at hand which is Rain and Alien. For what it's worth, if Rain goes on to have a larger role in more Alien sequels I'm more than happy to see Cailee continue to embody that role and make it her own. The franchise has been in desperate need of someone worthy enough to carry on Ripley's torch, they tried and failed with
Prometheus and
Covenant and hell, even
Resurrection brought Ripley back from the dead which just didn't work at all. Rain is compelling, relatable in the sense that she is just a nobody getting screwed over by the system and is put in nightmarish scenario she's woefully unprepared for, and of course it also helps that she's easy on the eyes. I hope Fede Alvarez can bring Rain and Andy back for more sequels but with Ridely Scott now wanting to get back on the saddle we'll have to pray that David doesn't come across Rain's ship and they turn her into another Elizabeth Shaw.
On the topic of the figure itself, I'm really looking forward to an official announcement but I'd like to see Hot Toys tone down the lip color and paint her eyes in the correct blueish grey tone, they seem to be brown in the prototype.
. 
