Alien: Earth‘s showrunner and actors address the possibility of a new crossover with the Predator franchise. Premiering August 12 on FX, Alien: Earth brings the horror sci-fi franchise to live-action television for the first time in a new story set before Ridley Scott’s inaugural Alien film. Meanwhile, the Predator franchise is also resurgent under director Dan Trachtenberg, with the animated Predator: Killer of Killers on Hulu, and Predator: Badlands premiering in theaters in November.
During ScreenRant‘s interviews for Alien: Earth, which already boasts the Alien franchise’s highest Rotten Tomatoes score since 1986, creator and showrunner Noah Hawley, as well as actors Samuel Blenkin and Babou Cessay, spoke to Liam Crowley about the chances of a new Alien vs. Predator crossover.
While Hawley was cautious about the idea, citing that the Alien franchise has to “prove ourselves on television” first and noting his concern about a crossover could “steal some energy from the franchise,” Blenkin and Cessau also shared their excitement for the idea. Read their quotes below.
Noah Hawley: Yeah, I mean I think you’re projecting a kind of a master plan because of what Marvel has done and the reality that there is one person, Kevin Feige, who’s overseeing that entire story as one big story. Dan Trachtenberg, he’s on his own mission, and there’s a bit of a firewall between the feature side and the TV side. Maybe in success. We have to prove ourselves on television. Maybe a larger conversation will start mostly not to coordinate, but probably to make sure we don’t duplicate because that begins to steal some of the energy from the franchise. But I’m excited to see that film.
Samuel Blenkin: That is a Noah Hawley question. We’ll just have to see. You’ll have to as the season unfolds, but yeah, I can’t wait to see that. I’m really excited to see it and I love that there is a slight crossover there in universes, but that’s a Noah question.
Babou Ceesay: It’s wonderful as well to see both these franchises that are so iconic, coming back, coming back and coming back so strong. We were at Comic-Con and they were there as well. It’s just the atmosphere, the buzz, and they’ve had a crossover before, so anything is possible, right?
Noah Hawley is, understandably, more focused on Alien: Earth becoming a success on FX and proving the Xenomorph franchise can thrive on television. Hawley evoking Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige denotes that the Alien and Predator franchises don’t have that kind of a master planner, and that Dan Trachtenberg is overseeing his own vision for Predator after the success of Hulu’s Prey in 2022.
The theatrical Alien franchise also had a recent hit with fans and critics with director Fede Alvarez’s Alien: Romulus, which has a sequel in development. It’s possible that if a new Alien vs. Predator crossover were to happen, it would be on the film side and not the television side of Alien under Noah Hawley.
Our Take On A Future Alien Vs. Predator Crossover
Noah Hawley’s instincts to focus on building a successful Alien television franchise are the right move, rather than looking to branch out with the idea of a crossover with Predator. However, one also can’t help being excited at the thought of Alien and Predator meeting again, as Samuel Blenkin and Babou Cessay are, given the new heights both franchises are reaching.
Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, Alien vs. Predator hit theaters in 2004, with the sequel, the Greg and Colin Strause-directed Alien vs. Predator: Requiem, following in 2007. The Alien vs. Predator movies aren’t regarded as classics as the original Alien or Predator films are, however. There is potential to create a great crossover between the two iconic movie creatures, even if it may not be under the auspices of Noah Hawley’s Alien: Earth TV series.
