Right now, both the Alien and Predator franchises are having a renaissance: Alien: Romulus was a hit film, Alien: Earth is a television sensation, and Predator: Badlands is currently killing it at the box office. Years ago, however, both franchises were at their lowest with the two Alien vs. Predator films, which ran roughshod all over established canon while giving us one phoned-in action scene after another.
Now, though, Badlands director Dan Trachtenberg has indicated he wants to create Alien vs. Predator 3, and it sounds like he has the creative vision to finally make this monster mash work.
If It Bleeds, We Can… Cook It?
All of this started when Alien: Romulus director Fede Álvarez made a joke about creating an Alien vs. Predator 3 film with Trachtenberg. In a recent interview with The Direct, Trachtenberg was asked whether there had been any discussions about properly resurrecting that controversial horror franchise. Surprisingly, Trachtenberg said that he would be fine doing that but wanted the different elements of each franchise to sufficiently “cook…to simmer and boil and get up to the perfect temperature,” and he likened making Alien vs. Predator 3 very soon to “pull[ing] it out of the oven too quickly and [having[ it all just be raw.”
Soon afterward, Dan Trachtenberg laughed at the silliness of his own metaphor, claiming “I don’t know, I don’t cook” and jokingly acknowledged that he used “too many terms” to answer the question. However, beneath the awkward oven metaphors, the director makes a great point: rushing into a new Alien vs. Predator movie would be unwise, a bit like the failed DCEU rushing to create a Justice League movie. In retrospect, it’s clear that the ensemble superhero film would have been more of a success if Warner Bros. had taken the time to separately develop all of these characters before putting them onscreen together.
The Crossover Has Already Started
Broadly speaking, this seems to be what Trachtenberg wants to do, and he’s laid the groundwork for Alien vs. Predator 3 in Predator: Badlands. In Badlands (beware, I’m going to touch on a few spoilers here), one of the most prominent characters is a synthetic created by Weyland-Yutani, the same evil corporation from the Alien franchise. This all started with his idea of teaming the Predator up with a robot, and he decided to make it a synthetic since Disney now owns both the Alien and Predator franchises.
Trachtenberg showed remarkable restraint in bringing over one of the most familiar Alien concepts but not bringing over the xenomorph itself. In the interview, he described how he thought “it’s so much cooler” to do this “rather than just grabbing the action figures and smashing them together.” Instead, he thought it would be more effective to subtly “take an element from one franchise and fuse that to another.”
Whoever Loses, We Win
Based on the quality of his three Predator films and his comments in this interview, I can’t help but feel that Dan Trachtenberg might be the only director on the planet who could really pull off a successful Alien vs. Predator movie. The restraint he showed in making Badlands only a quasi-crossover proves that he is more interested in telling a good story than engaging in empty fan service, and his comments indicate that he knows a really successful cinematic universe takes plenty of time to build. He genuinely wants to take the time to make this crossover successful rather than rush into a cheap cash grab, and that seems refreshing amid other cinematic universes more interested in selling toys than anything else.
Only time will tell if we get another Alien vs. Predator movie and if Dan Trachtenberg ends up being the one to direct it. So far, though, he has a killer track record with the Predator movies, effectively reviving a franchise long thought dead. With a director this talented, we could really turn the old AvP tagline on its head: “whoever loses, we win.”
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