Fans of The Predator franchise are already enjoying a great week, but it’s about to get a lot better. After days of Disney officially announcing the next film in the series, The Predator: The Wild Lands, set to premiere in theaters next year, a Fox executive teased that another film will also be released next year. And it may ultimately be another alien taking the lead once again.
“After The Prey became a success, (director of this film) Dan (Trachtenberg) returned and said he didn’t want to do Prey 2. Steve Asbell, president of 20th Century Studios, told The Hollywood Reporter: “What do you want to do?”. “He pitched a couple of ideas that were really crazy but really great. We have already done two of them. Two are coming out next year. One I can’t talk about yet, but the other is the direct event The Predator film with Elle Fanning which just wrapped in New Zealand. It will be released theatrically at some point next year.”
When asked about this second film, Asbell didn’t budge. “There’s a second Predator film that we have different plans for. Asbell said: “Dan has already directed both of them.” “There’s a secret Predator film that will be released before the theatrical release but I can’t say anything about it yet.”
What he can say a little more about is The Wild Lands. “The Wild Lands… Asbell said: “It’s a completely crazy idea.” “It’s sci-fi, but not as everyone thinks. And I mean it’s great. It’s really crazy. But with Dan, we trust.”
So, what is he talking about? The fact that Asbell said “the other is a direct Predator film” leads some to believe that the second film is some sort of animated project. io9 reached out to the director who, for understandable reasons, did not comment. However, this mysterious face did post emojis on social media, so feel free to speculate widely below.
From there, the studio head also admitted that a) a sequel to Alien: Romulus following Rain and Andy (Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson) is in the works from Fede Alvarez, and b) the future of Alien vs. Predator may see a film at some point. “It won’t be the way you think. Asbell said about it: “That’s it”. AFA. “Not the way it was just called Alien vs. Predator or anything like the original films. If we do it, it will be organically created from these two franchises that we have continued with the characters we fell in love with and those characters will be merged… maybe. But we’re not there yet. And we’re not going to settle for blowing them up.”
It seems that fans of not only The Predator but also Alien will feast well in the coming years. Head to Hollywood Reporter to read more about what’s to come from 20th Century Fox.
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