Alien Vs. Predator Anime Held Hostage By Disney
While we’re excited that Disney will soon be bringing back the nostalgia with X-Men ‘97, the studio may be crushing the dreams of Alien Vs. Predator fans everywhere. During an episode of the Perfect Organism podcast, Joshua Izzo, the former director of licensing at 20th Century Fox said that the House of Mouse has the fully completed 10-episode series under lock and key in its infamous vault, with the likelihood being that it will never see the light of day.
The news of the Alien vs. Predator deadlock comes following Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox back in 2019, and after the merger was completed, the studio essentially scrapped all plans of dropping the anime for the franchise’s loyal fans to see. The initial plan, according to Izzo, was to drop three DVDs of the production in North America while the episodes would find their way to the small screen in Japan.
Disney reportedly has no plans to ever release the completed Alien vs. Predator anime series.
But, with this most recent bit of information, don’t hold your breath for any DVDs or television installments to make their way out of the vault and into the public eye anytime soon.
Everything We Know About The Alien vs. Predator Anime
While we may never see the Alien vs. Predator anime that was promised to us, we luckily have a better idea of the dazzling artwork and epic battles that were set to take place in the Shinji Aramaki-helmed project. The series was set to be titled Alien vs. Predator: Annihilation, which further points to the bloodshed that audiences would have seen from the production.
The action would, for the most part, go down on an immigration ship, although it was never specified whether that craft would be made up of humans or aliens.
Beyond this, no further information about Alien vs. Predator: Annihilation was revealed with no cast members, characters, or a fully-fleshed plot unveiled by Aramaki. However, the framework laid out surrounding the immigration ships does point to the storyline staying closely alongside Ridley Scott’s classic 1979 sci-fi feature, Alien.
As many of us have begrudgingly learned over the last year, when two or more studios merge or are bought out by another company, many titles face the same fate that befell Alien vs. Predator: Annihilation. 2022 saw the creation of Warner Bros. Discovery which, in turn, led both platforms to axe fan-favorite content as well as remove productions like Batgirl that had never made it out in the first place.
Framework laid out surrounding the immigration ships does point to the storyline staying closely alongside Ridley Scott’s classic 1979 sci-fi feature, Alien.
Likewise, The CW faced a major shift when it was taken over by Nexstar Media Group as it turned away from scripted content, giving audiences a shock when Supernatural prequel series The Winchesters and Walker prequel series Walker: Independence were not renewed for second seasons.
The Future of Alien and Predator
When it comes to Alien vs. Predator, although the anime series may be tucked away in the Disney vault, there are still plenty of other stories from each franchise left to tell. In 2022, the seventh film in the Predator franchise found itself making waves on Hulu. Meanwhile, we know that Evil Dead director Fede Alvarez will be giving fans the next installation in the Alien franchise next August.
