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When worlds collide

Alien and Predator
  • Posted at 3:50pm
  • 18 January 2008
  • by AndrewCollins-RT

If you work in brand marketing, you'd probably call it "cross-promotional synergy". The xenomorph (aka Alien) first met the yautja (aka Predator) in a 1989 comic. This led to a series of titanic clashes played out in a series of computer games and sci-fi novels.

A movie adaptation - AVP: Alien vs Predator - followed in 2004, now joined by a sequel, A V P R - Aliens vs Predator - Requiem (currently in cinemas).

In the interim, comics publisher Dark Horse have pitted Predator against Batman, Aliens against Superman, RoboCop against the Terminator, and, last year, Batman and Superman versus Aliens and Predator – every one a potential movie pitch along the lines of 2003's slasher date-movie Freddy vs Jason (or Elm Street meets Friday 13th).

In The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, again based on a comic, literary characters such as Allan Quatermain, Dr Jekyll, Tom Sawyer and Captain Nemo joined forces. This degree of cross-pollination hasn't been seen since the 1940s, when Universal discovered that there was life in their horror properties yet and made Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943) and House of Frankenstein (1944), featuring the Monster, Wolf Man and Dracula. After that, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello met just about every monster on the studio's books, from the Invisible Man to the Mummy.

In 1962, Japanese studio Toho made King Kong vs Godzilla, the blueprint clash of the titans.

A sequel was nixed over problematic rights issues – a clue to the potential minefield of a franchise cocktail. Otherwise, the sky would be the limit and we could enjoy "The Godfather v Scarface", "Jessica Rabbit Meets the 40 Year Old Virgin", or, my own personal fantasy, "Hannibal Lecter v Jar Jar Binks".

So now it's your turn – why not tell us who your fantasy foes would be? Post a comment below.

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