Noah Hawley has no plans for an Alien: Earth x Predator crossover.
The writer and director of the FX series Alien: Earth, which is based on the money-spinning sci-fi film franchise, has confirmed he is not collaborating with Prey and Predator: Badlands director Dan Trachtenberg on a crossover.
He told Collider: “No, not onto the show. I mean, I loved ‘Prey.’ I think he’s doing a great job with that franchise. He clearly has a plan there.”
Asked if he's discussed anything with Trachtenberg, he said: “We’re not kind of coordinating any of that stuff. It’s not really my plan to do it.”
While it's not on the cards for Hawley, Trachtenberg recently hinted at doing an Alien vs. Predator movie.
He said there have been lots of "crazy stories" suggested for the sci-fi horror franchise, and another crossover between the two worlds has come up in conversation.
After the trailer for Badlands opened with Weyland-Yutani robot Thia, played by Elle Fanning, fans started reading into it as a sign that another Alien vs. Predator movie was in the pipeline.
On how he would go about doing an Alien vs. Predator film, Trachtenberg told SYFY WIRE: "For me, that would look like something that came from the narrative.
"That the movie wouldn't have its sole existence based around, ‘Let's see what happens when these two things clash.’ It would be because that's where the story is the most compelling and interesting ... across the board, there's been a lot of fun conversations about all the kinds of crazy stories we could tell."
The last Alien vs. Predator movie was 2007's Requiem, which followed 2004's Alien vs. Predator.
When it came to Badlands, the filmmaker was against having humans, hence the synthetic backpack in Thia.
He explained: "I knew I did not want to put any humans in the movie.
"I just felt like that would water down the premise of the 'Predator as protagonist' [setup], and it would become another 'Predator as the sidekick to the human'. "But because Prey was much more of a solo survival tale, I did like the idea of there being other things the Yautja meets along the way. I also loved the idea of a monster and a robot teaming up. There's something really cool to that story. And then came the idea of, ‘Well, I know a company that makes robots and both franchises happen to be owned by Disney and 20th [Century Studios]...'"
He admits he was "lucky" that the studio was so supportive of his "crazy idea".
Trachtenberg went on: "The head of the studio would often be like, ‘What's going on with that backpack movie?’ And so, we actually code-named the movie ‘Backpack' during production. But aside from the obvious human anxiety over a movie that's so bold, people were—for the most part—equally very excited about pulling it off. I find myself very lucky to have the collaborators that I did, because not everyone would see the promise in such a crazy idea."
