A Surprising Alien And Predator Crossover Was Just Sneakily Confirmed
Humanity's about to be stuck between a murderous rock and an acidic hard place again.
After years of teasing another round of Alien vs. Predator movies, the first new crossover since 2007 is suddenly coming much sooner than anyone thought. The upcoming Predator: Badlands’ main character, Thia (Elle Fanning), isn’t human, but a “Weyland-Yutani android.” This detail was seemingly confirmed when the first trailer for Predator: Badlands dropped, as a logo for Alien’s villainous Weyland-Yutani corporation is briefly visible in Thia’s eyes.
Fanning is reportedly playing two characters, and if one of them is indeed an android from the Alien canon, then the new Predator movies will officially share their continuity. But does this make the Alien versus Predator movies of the early aughts canonical? Not so fast.
The history of Alien and Predator crossovers is based more on vibes than a coherent canon. Back in 1989, when Aliens (1986) and Predator (1987) were still fresh in the minds of sci-fi fans, comic book writers Randy Stradley and Chris Warner made the first crossover happen thanks to a Dark Horse Comics miniseries. From there, we got a 1993 video game and, eventually, the first live-action crossover film, Alien vs. Predator, in 2004.
But the average fan in the early aughts wasn’t keeping track of continuity in the same obsessive way we do now. And 20th Century Fox, for its part, wasn’t trying to build up a big shared universe; the crossover just seemed like a cool, marketable idea. That’s why Alien vs. Predator’s continuity was ignored when Ridley Scott decided to make his own prequel, Prometheus, in 2012.
Thia (Elle Fanning), right before her eye reveals a Weyland-Yutani logo.
However, because 20th Century Pictures owns both franchises, the idea that new installments in both universes could lead to new crossovers has been brewing for a while now. In October 2024, Steve Asbell, head of 20th Century, teased the idea of new Alien vs. Predator movies. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Asbell said:
“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.”
Despite Asbell saying “we haven’t gotten to that point,” it appears, thanks to Badlands, that we very much have. Whether the new Predator movie fully explains the Weyland-Yutani connection remains to be seen, but even if Fanning’s character only has a passing connection to David, Ash, Bishop, and all the other famous Alien synths, the seed for a new crossover has already been planted. It’s only a matter of time, it seems, before xenomorphs and Predators once again engage in the ultimate sci-fi smackdown.
