The Big Picture

• The Alien vs. Predator franchise has struggled due to poor sequels and canceled projects.
• An anime, Aliens vs. Predator: Annihilation, was completed but shelved.
• Aliens vs. Predator: Annihilation was canceled due to other Alien and Predator projects.

When Alien vs. Predator first came out, fans were both surprised and excited to see the Xenomorphs of Alien fame and the Yautja from the Predator franchise face off on the big screen. This was a crossover idea that nobody who hadn't read comic books was expecting, and even that crowd never thought we'd ever see an actual movie version of this close encounter.

While Alien vs. Predator and its eventual sequel weren't the most cherished films in either the Alien or Predator franchises, the crossover series found a life of its own through comic books, novels, video games, and other mediums. In the 2010s, Alien vs. Predator was nearly turned into an anime series before the whole project was swept under the rug. Called Aliens vs. Predator: Annihilation, this series was completed for its original 2016 release date, but due to other franchise factors, was promptly canceled by Fox. So what happened?

The Alien vs. Predator Franchise Has a Rocky History

It had been more than a few years since the Alien vs. Predator crossover series did something worthwhile. Aside from some comic book continuations and tie-in novels, the second Alien vs. Predator, Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, was largely hated by audiences and critics alike. Despite its success at the box office, the sequel couldn't live up to the Paul W.S. Anderson original, which was likewise maligned by critics. While the first film wasn't a masterpiece, it still tried to honor the original material in its own unique way, and its casting of Lance Henriksen as a human Bishop character was a win in our book. Requiem, on the other hand, wasn't interested in anything other than the battle, and the results were poor at best. Nobody was surprised when any future sequels were canceled, putting the Alien vs. Predator franchise on an indefinite hold.

In 2023, Joshua Izzo, the former Director of Licensing at 20th Century Fox (before the Disney buyout), sat down for an interview with Perfect Organism: An Alien Saga Podcast, where he revealed the hidden existence of an Alien vs. Predator anime series. As the man responsible for creating Alien Day (an annual celebration of all things Alien), the first event was held in 2016 and was intended to be the release date of Alien vs. Predator: Annihilation, a 10-part anime continuation of the Alien vs. Predator franchise. He explained that the original idea came about after the success that Sam Register over at Warner Bros. Animation was having with direct-to-video adaptations of DC Comics source material, with films such as Superman: Doomsday, Justice League: New Frontier, and Batman: Under the Red Hood performing well on home video. Inspired by Register's comic-to-screen model, Izzo pitched the idea of Fox, and after some deliberation, they went for it (via AVP: Galaxy).

From there, Eric Calderon and Dave Baker were hired to help crack the initial story and produced what grew into a multipart anime series. "It was going to be released as three direct-to-DVD and/or streaming movies here in the West," Izzo explained, "10 episodes on Japan television." Eventually, director Shinji Aramaki, known for the animated Starship Trooper movies, was brought on board, and Alien vs. Predator: Annihilation grew into an even bigger project that would have tied in not just to the Alien vs. Predator crossover universe, but also to the flagship Alien and Predator franchises as well.

What Is 'Alien vs. Predator: Annihilation' About?

Originally, Izzo's idea was for Annihilation to directly adapt the original Dark Horse comic books that first brought the Xenomorph and the Yautja together. That's right, long before Alien vs. Predator was greenlit by Fox, these franchises crossed over in the pages of comic books. The original Alien vs. Predator comic series began in 1989 and followed a woman named Machiko Noguchi, who lived on the colonized planet of Ryushi where she eventually found herself caught in the middle of a skirmish between the Xenomorphs and a Yautja she calls "Broken Tusk." "We own nearly 30 years of comic book content of Alien and Predator and AVP. No rights, no strings," Izzo pitched to the studio. "Why don’t we adapt the original AVP comic book series with Machiko and Broken Tusk? Let’s just do that. Here’s your storyboard."

Fans have since speculated which Machiko Noguchi-led stories would've been the direct basis, with all signs pointing to 1994's Aliens vs. Predator: Prey, 1997's Aliens vs. Predator: Hunter's Planet, and 1999's Aliens vs. Predator: War. Each of these stories predated the original Alien vs. Predator feature film. This solid start got the ball rolling, with the creatives excited about where to take the material, but when Shinji Aramaki was brought on to helm the project, things changed. Izzo revealed that Aramaki wanted to tell an original tale rather than directly adapting the comic book material. "We all sit down and we craft the story and we crack the idea and we find a place within our established canon. I put it way deep future, post-AVP, post-[Alien: Resurrection]," he revealed. By setting Alien vs. Predator: Annihilation so far into the future, it opened the door for future franchise installments to still consider the anime canon while not messing with the canonicity of any other production. While the Alien vs. Predator movies were set in the present day, Annihilation was taking this crossover franchise to new heights.

Originally, the plan was to follow Machiko through all the stages of her life, pulling from the original Dark Horse series for the first few episodes, the limited series Aliens vs. Predator: War for the middle installments, and then concluding with a new ending for the character, with Machiko as an adult working alongside the Yautja. Reportedly, Eric Calderon and Dave Baker wrote a half dozen scripts and had exhaustive outlines for the rest. But when Aramaki came aboard, he flipped the script and set the whole series on a giant immigration ship with an original Ripley-ish character, according to Anime News Network. Since fans would've likely preferred a direct Dark Horse comic adaptation (though any new AVP content is welcome), it's strange that Fox would've allowed such drastic changes. But considering they never ended up releasing the anime production, maybe they knew its fate all along.

Why Wasn't 'Alien vs. Predator: Annihilation' Released?

From there, Aliens vs. Predator: Annihilation began production, with a new story (and new characters) that likely would've blown fans' minds. "One of the Predators is a cyborg and has a fully cybernetic arm and a cybernetic mandible," Izzo teased. "It’s super rad. One we called Bone because all of his weapons were made out of giant tusks." It's easy to see why Annihilation would've been the flagship release of 2016's first annual Alien Day. The project would've connected itself directly to not just the Alien vs. Predator series, but both the Alien and Predator franchises proper. Given that fans have struggled for years to connect the timelines of all three of these series' together in some way or another, Alien vs. Predator: Annihilation might've finally succeeded where other stories have failed.

But when Alien Day 2016 came around, the project was shut down, despite being completed. Izzo explained that the development of Ridley Scott's Alien: Covenant and Shane Black's The Predator were part of the reasons why the anime production was locked away. "Netflix was interested, so was Hulu. We actually had distribution ready to go but because the larger studio had these two feature films utilizing the macro Alien and Predator intellectual properties, the animation got back burnered." It's hard to understand why so many Hollywood studios think releasing two versions of the same character/intellectual property will be confusing. Most fans understand the difference between Ben Affleck's Batman and Robert Pattinson's Caped Crusader, and yet both (as well as Michael Keaton's Dark Knight) appeared in theaters within a year of one another between 2022 and 2023. But for Fox, having two big Alien-related (and Predator-related) productions running at once was a no-go.

To make matters worse, Izzo explained that not only was the anime project canceled, but an art book and novel, further Dark Horse comic tie-ins, and other tie-in media were being worked on concurrently with the 10-part series. Since then, Scott's Alien: Covenant came and went, as did Black's The Predator. Hulu released Prey in 2022, effectively re-branding the Predator franchise, and Alien: Romulus is set to hit theaters in 2024. And that's not including the upcoming Prey sequel, Badlands or the FX Alien television series that are still coming down the pipeline. Furthermore, Ridley Scott's Alien prequels ignore the Predator franchise entirely, and it makes us wonder if Fox (and now Disney) is just completely uninterested in revisiting Alien vs. Predator. "[AVP: Annihilation] was completed almost 7 years ago," anime series director Shinji Aramaki told fans on X (formerly Twitter) as recently as May 2023. "And unfortunately I don’t know why they didn’t release." To this day, Aliens vs. Predator: Annihilation is sitting in a vault somewhere collecting dust. Hopefully, we won't have to wait until the distant future to see this anime in the light of day.

Alien vs. Predator is available to watch on Hulu in the U.S.

Watch on Hulu