Considered by some to be an abomination that bastardised its two original franchises, while labelled by others as fun, popcorn flicks that shouldn’t be taken too seriously, the Alien vs Predator franchise is a truly unique case of studio interference and lost opportunities. With fringe fans continuing to campaign for Alien vs Predator 3, it’s worth diving into whether a third film could actually happen, and if it makes any sense at all for the studio to finally pull the trigger.
To understand how we got here, it is best to go back to the roots, which is the first Alien film released in 1979 by Ridley Scott. Dark, atmospheric, and unforgiving, the first Alien film set the world on fire, garnering critical acclaim with both fans and critics alike. Three more sequels would follow by 1997, and during the same period, Fox would also release two Predator feature films. The lucrative box office receipts, coupled with the alien-centric lore of both franchises, would prompt some executives at Fox towards the bright idea that they should combine the two monsters in a face-off feature, similar to what had been done with both Freddy Krueger and Jason from Friday the 13th.
On learning that Fox indeed wanted to make the Alien vs Predator film, James Cameron (who directed the second Alien film in 1986) warned that such a venture would "kill the validity of the franchise" and ceased work on his Alien sequel that had been developing for some time.
He further stated, "To me, that was Frankenstein Meets Werewolf. It was Universal just taking their assets and starting to play them off against each other." After viewing the first Alien vs Predator, Cameron would change his tune, noting that "it was actually pretty good. I think of the five Alien films, I'd rate it third. I actually liked it. I actually liked it a lot." Conversely, Ridley Scott has religiously opposed the Alien vs Predator idea ever since it was born. When asked in May 2012 if he had watched them, Scott laughed, "No. I couldn't do that. I couldn't quite take that step.
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Alien vs Predator 3
When Sigourney Weaver got to know that Fox was developing the crossover, she asked that her character be killed off in Alien 3. Despite the tremendous backlash, Fox pushed ahead and released the first Alien vs. Predator in 2004 with a stacked cast. Debuting to middling reviews, the film nevertheless made close to three times its budget. With the film being a bona fide hit, Fox thought it had succeeded in the gamble and quickly greenlit a sequel.
For reasons that remain unclear, the studio slashed the sequel’s budget in half and brought in the Strause brothers for the first time. The gamble didn’t pay off. The film opened to abysmal reviews — the worst received by any Alien or Predator movie — yet still managed to triple its budget by the end of its theatrical run. Fox later released an extended, unrated cut on home media, but the overwhelming critical backlash effectively stalled any plans for a follow-up.
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Alien vs Predator 3
While some will argue that the two AvP films were finally successful, the fact of the matter is that they caused considerable ill will among both the fans and the directors of previous films. Both Ridley Scott and James Cameron ceased work on their respective Alien films due to the AvP films, and the insane amount of damage that these films did to both franchises is hard to understate. When Fox realised the level of damage it had done, it begged Ridley Scott to come back and make two Alien prequels instead: Prometheus (2012) and Alien: Covenant (2017). The two films helped bring the franchise back from the edge of extinction. After Disney got hold of the rights, they tried to improve the franchise further, releasing 2024’s Alien: Romulus and the 2025 Noah Hawley series Alien Earth.
At the other end of the spectrum, the second AvP film also damaged the Predator franchise considerably. Even though the Predator franchise hadn’t seen a new entry since Predator 2 in the 1990s, Fox rushed into damage-control mode after the second Alien vs. Predator film. The studio quickly signed Robert Rodriguez and Nimród Antal to revive the series with Predators in 2010, then brought back original Predator co-writer Shane Black to helm another reboot in 2018. Later, Disney’s acquisition of Fox proved to be a boon for the Predator franchise, with two new live-action films and one animated film released in the last three years.
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Although some factions within Fox still pushed Alien vs. Predator as the future for both franchises, Ridley Scott stepped in and shut that direction down. The disdain that Scott had for the films was so much, and he believed these two films had bastardised his original to such an extent that he later retconned the two AvP out of the franchise canon through his Prometheus and Alien: Covenant films.
Nevertheless, the loose franchise canon meant that references to AvP managed to sneak into the 2018 Predator feature directed by Shane Black. These included shurikens (first used by the Predators in 2004’s AvP) and Lex Wood's spear made from a Xenomorph tail (also seen in AvP). Furthermore, Françoise Yip, who played Ms. Yutani in AvP: Requiem, also reprised her role as Mrs. Yutani in The Predator (2018), though much of her role was cut from the final film.
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To conclude, there seems to be no chance that a new Aliens vs Predator film will happen anytime soon. Although the recent installments of both the Alien and Predator franchises have included references to each other, the chances of Disney/Fox setting up another sequel where the two creatures face off are zero. Both Alien and Predator franchises are doing pretty well on their own, and Disney would be crazy to mess it up, as Fox did in the early 2000s.
