Disney’s unlikely role as the saviour of ‘Alien’ and ‘Predator’
Thanks to the law of diminishing returns affecting both franchises in equal measure, not many people were overly enthusiastic about the prospect of either Alien or Predator being dusted off yet again, especially with Disney at the helm.
The corporation’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox gave it dominion over many iconic brands, some of which didn’t exactly fit the Mouse House’s family-friendly image. Needless to say, a pair of sci-fi horror icons were at the top of the list, creating genuine concern among fans that Disney formulating plans for the latest reinvention of the Xenomorphs and Yautja was being designed only with crass commercialisation in mind.
After all, the only previous time either Alien or Predator had flirted with an all-ages rating came on Paul WS Anderson’s Alien vs Predator, which was in itself an exercise in gimmickry given that it was a crossover. It made money as everyone was expecting it to do, but sanding down the edges of both properties only served as a reminder that a bloodless approach wasn’t in the best interests of anybody.
In all honesty, few people would have minded if the two titans of cosmic carnage had been placed on ice for a while. There hadn’t been a great Alien flick since James Cameron followed up Ridley Scott’s classic with one of his own in 1986. David Fincher’s troubled third instalment and Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s anaemic Resurrection ended the original quartet with a whimper before Scott’s polarising Prometheus and workmanlike Covenant didn’t even finish out the proposed trilogy.
Predator, meanwhile, had never replicated the success of John McTiernan and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s opening salvo. Predator 2 is fine for what it is, Nimrod Antal’s Predators was a serviceable enough homage to its predecessor, and Shane Black’s The Predator was merely the latest example that perhaps the franchise really was a one-trick pony all along.
The less said about Alien vs Predator: Requiem, the better, which was the nadir that displayed just how far the bar had fallen. There hadn’t been a top-tier Predator movie in 35 years, and Alien hadn’t delivered anything comparable to its first two chapters in almost 40, but somehow Disney, of all companies, managed to recapture the magic.
If anything, the success of Fede Álvarez’s Romulus – which cleared a quarter of a billion dollars at the box office in less than two weeks – should convince Disney that Dan Trachtenberg’s Prey follow-up Badlands is fully deserving of the theatrical release the last one never got. It’s a case of one hand feeding the other in a sense, with the executives realising after the rapturous reception to the period-set Predator that there was still a huge audience for these movies as long as they didn’t suck.
Romulus was initially announced as a Hulu exclusive, but perhaps driven by the acclaim and awards season recognition that greeted Prey, it was upgraded to theatres in what turned out to be a wise decision. There’s no guarantee Trachtenberg’s film would have fared as well were it unleashed on the big screen, but looking at what happened to Álvarez’s, it’s hard to say that it wouldn’t.
As simple as it sounds, all it needed was a back-to-basics approach. Prey immediately sheared itself of all bells and whistles by taking place in 1719, with the time period instantly setting it apart from any other Predator movie so far. All anybody ever wanted was stripped-back, hard-hitting, and gruesome sci-fi horror with a heavy action element, which Trachtenberg provided in abundance.
For Romulus, it was equally straightforward. Subsidiary 20th Century Studios hired a director with a background in horror who also happened to be a lifelong fan of Alien, which allowed Romulus to exist somewhere between wish-fulfilment, corporate shilling, and a genuine love letter to Scott and Cameron.
Ten years ago, telling someone that Disney would be spearheading Alien and Predator wouldn’t only have sounded patently ludicrous, but it would have sent a shiver down the spine of anyone with a soft spot for the titular creatures. Today, though, Prey and Romulus have made them more relevant than they’ve been in a long time, and there’s genuine excitement over what comes next.
