Predator: Badlands director teases "fun ideas” for more Alien crossovers with franchise

While the Alien and Predator series each include some undeniably incredible films, it's fair to say previous attempts to combine the two franchises have brought about fairly disastrous results.

Both 2004's Alien vs Predator and its 2007 follow-up Aliens vs Predator: Requiem were major critical failures, and since then there have been no further attempts to merge the two properties on the big screen.

At least, until now. Dan Trachtenberg's new movie Predator: Badlands – his third entry in the series in little over three years – includes some pretty major nods to Alien lore. Most prominently, Elle Fanning has a crucial role as a Weyland-Yutani synthetic, one of the artificial humans that have always featured in the classic sci-fi franchise, played by the likes of Ian Holm, Michael Fassbender and more recently David Jonsson.

For Trachtenberg, the chance to dip into the world of Alien was clearly an opportunity he relished – and there was one thing that especially excited him about his approach.

"The coolest part about it to me was no Xenomorph," he explained during an exclusive interview with RadioTimes.com. "Truly, it was not the idea of, 'What if we make Alien versus Predator again?'"

He added that a larger scale crossover may still be on the horizon "later down the line" but continued: "The cool [bit] was to use a part of another franchise and include it into the story of this franchise [so] that you can link things without it being like, look at the giant action figures being smashed together.

"It literally is just the components. I thought was a really elegant way to blend the two different franchises."

As for what specific plans he had bubbling away as to how he might continue to bring the two worlds together in the future, Trachtenberg more or less kept schtum. But, he did say: "I've got lots of fun ideas."

One thing is for sure, this certainly seems to open the door for a more fruitful fusing of the franchises in the future. And given he's now gone three for three when it comes to delivering inventive and entertaining new takes on Predator, we can't wait to see what some of those "fun ideas" might entail.

Here's hoping it's only a matter of time...

Predator: Badlands is released exclusively in cinemas on Friday 7th November.

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