‘Alien vs. Predator’: Fede Alvarez Reveals His Idea for a New Movie!!

Dan Trachtenberg and Fede Alvarez have something impressive in common. Both filmmakers dropped fresh installments into sci-fi franchises in the past few years that helped bring fans back. The former helmed the return of the Predator film series through its fifth installment, 2022’s Prey. As for the latter, he celebrated the mega success of 2024’s beloved sci-fi horror flick, Alien: Romulus. Over the last 20 years, the two nearly-indestructible creatures have collided twice, in the spine-chilling and adrenaline-pumping Alien vs. Predator and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem. So, with the overflowing love for both Prey and Alien: Romulus, the next obvious question is, “Will there be another Alien vs. Predator crossover?”

Earlier this week, Collider hosted a special IMAX screening of Alien: Romulus, which was followed by a Q&A session moderated by Steve Weintraub. Setting out to celebrate and bring attention to the film’s Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects, the panel included Alvarez, VFX Supervisor Eric Barbra, and Wētā FX VFX Supervisor Dan Macarin. While nothing is set in stone, the Evil Dead director admitted that a sci-fi horror crossover with the two greats would be something he’d love to see in the future, telling the audience,

“I can’t speak for Dan. At some point, once there’s another Alien, and I know he’s working on a sequel to Prey, one day if we feel like, ‘Yeah, that’s what we cannot wait to see,’ I think that’s a movie we could do.”

This all sounds absolutely amazing, and it’s certainly something that we would love to see, but if it happens, it sounds like it would be in an incredibly unexpected way. Explaining how he’d like to go about an Alien vs. Predator sequel, prequel, or off-shoot installment, Álvarez said,

“The way I would do it, most likely, if it could be done this way… It’s harder to keep secrets online… The best AVP will be the one that you don’t know is AVP until the other guy shows up. You think you’re watching a Predator movie, and then they land in some place and there are creatures, and fucking hell, it’s a Xenomorph. That would get me. ‘Fuck yeah!’ You’d go crazy. Or vice versa, you’re in an Alien movie, and then suddenly a mysterious creature is there, and you can hear that sound, and you see the cloak, and you go, ‘Is that a fucking Predator?’ And then turns out it is. That would be the way to do it, don’t you think? Once you put it in the title, it’s like, ‘Spoiler alert.’”

“Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way”

If this sounds like an impossible undertaking, Alvarez already has some experience of hiding things from viewers. Case in point is the unexpected cameo in Alien: Romulus that — through CGI — brought back Ian Holm as the android, Rook. While he agrees that it would be difficult to pull off such a feat for a potential crossover film, Álvarez explained,

“Rook in this movie was something thatwe kept as a secret until it was the last second. Most of you, hopefully, didn’t know until you went in on opening night. Early on, this dude had said, ‘It’s impossible. People will know. There will be screenings.’ But then the few screenings we did before the movie, I begged everybody, ‘Please do not ruin it for everybody else. Do not post about Ian Holm being in the film.’

And guess what? This idea was almost how Alien: Romulus played out, with the director admitting that the movie was nearly billed as just a sci-fi flick that would surprise audiences when they took their seats in the theater.

“Originally, this film was going to be that. We started talking about this film when Ridley [Scott] was doing Covenant. That’s when they started talking with Michael Schaefer, who was his right hand at the time. When I pitched this story when they asked me what kind of movie I’d do, what I pitched at the time was, ‘Why don’t we do it as a spin-off? We don’t say Alien. We just put any random science fiction title. We show some kids and some planets somewhere…’ It was this whole thing, ‘And then suddenly they walk into a room, and there’s a fucking egg.’ Imagine that audience at SXSW finding out on opening night, 30 minutes into the movie, that you’re watching an Alien movie. That was the original plan.”

While we love the element of surprise, we’re also glad that we had a clean look at the facehuggers and Xenomorphs in the trailers for Alien: Romulus. Right now, you can hop on board with Cailee Spaeny’s Rain Carradine and the rest of the doomed travelers now. Alien: Romulus is currently streaming on Hulu and Disney+.