The odds are good there will be an Alien vs. Predator movie again someday, but according to 20th Century Studios president Steve Asbell, they would be taking a more circuitous route next time around, trying to craft a narrative that ties into the existing Alien and Predator movies, rather than just knocking out a movie in order to get it done by a deadline. The suggestion seems to be that Asbell sees the previous iterations of the AvP movies as, basically, clashing the toys together. The hope is, this time around it will be more narrative-driven.
In fact, he told The Hollywood Reporter, it’s likely the movie won’t have something like Alien vs. Predator in the title.
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Fans will “probably” get a reboot, according to Asbell, but “it wouldn’t be in the way you think. That’s the thing. Not in the way that it will just be called Alien vs. Predator or anything like the original movies. If we do this, they’ll be organically created out of these two franchises that we’ve continued with characters that we fall in love with and those characters will combine…perhaps. But we haven’t gotten to that point. And we’re not just going to bang it out.”
That approach tracks, given the critical and commercial success enjoyed by both Prey — the recent Predator prequel — and Alien: Romulus, which just hit theaters in August.
“I think there’s certainly some good stories that could be told in that world, and it’s not like it hasn’t been done,” Prey‘s Alec Gillis told us in 2022, in a comment that seemed at the time like a dismissal of the AvP idea but now seems in keeping with Asbell’s philosophy. “What excites me about Disney’s involvement in this is what they’ve done with the Star Wars universe, where you can have these standalone side story movies. It expands the universe and expands possibilities. So we’re looking forward to filling in those spaces with cool creatures, cool stories.”
The concept of pitting xenomorphs against predators originated with Dark Horse Comics in 1989, when Alien versus Predator was a comic book miniseries that became such a hit that it was followed by up several follow-up series and novels. In 1990, Predator 2 featured a shot of a xenomorph skull in a Predator’s trophy case, and it was as early as 1991 that Hollywood started to toy with the idea. In 1993, Jason Goes to Hell ended with Freddy Krueger’s gloved hand pulling Jason’s mask down into Hell. Suddenly, the horror-crossover race was on — which ultimately resulted in 2004’s Alien vs. Predator and 2009’s Freddy vs. Jason.
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Set in the Comanche Nation 300 years ago, "Prey" is the story of a young woman, Naru, a fierce and highly skilled warrior. She has been raised in the shadow of some of the most legendary hunters who roam the Great Plains, so when danger threatens her camp, she sets out to protect her people. The prey she stalks, and ultimately confronts, turns out to be a highly evolved alien predator with a technically advanced arsenal, resulting in a vicious and terrifying showdown between the two adversaries. Naru (Amber Midthunder) and the Predator (Dane DeLiegro), shown. (Photo by: David Bukach/20th Century Studios)
