The Alien vs. Predator: Annihilation anime has apparently already finished production, but Disney won't release it. Why?
The Alien and Predator franchises brought us some of the most iconic 90s action/horror sci-fi blockbusters, while their crossover movies were okay at best. Now it looks like Disney has a fully completed anime of the two space adversaries ready to go, but for whatever reason just doesn't want to release it.
The Alien franchise is a sci-fi horror series that follows humanity's terrifying encounters with a relentless and highly-adaptable extraterrestrial species known as Xenomorphs.
The Predator franchise, on the other hand, revolves around a technologically advanced alien race hunting humans and other formidable prey, resulting in intense action-packed confrontations in diverse settings.
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So in the anime, you would have two very different Apex predators going at each other, or not...
Disney Holds Back Finished Alien vs. Predator Anime
The breaking news regarding this not-release was first revealed on the Perfect Organism podcast. During a recent episode, they hosted the former licensing director at 20th Century Fox, Joshua Izzo, who revealed that Disney was just sitting on the 10-episode anime.
It’s done. It’s in the can. It’s mixed; it’s finished. It was produced and story cracked by Eric Calderon and Dave Baker, two unbelievably crazy talented guys.
Joshua Izzo is not the only one who's been involved in the anime. At Otacon 2023, Shinji Aramaki, probably best known for his work as director of Blade Runner: Black Lotus, confirmed that the anime is basically ready for release.
As the director of the unreleased anime, he even shared some plot details. Ridley Scott would have played a major role on the immigration ship where the story takes place and according to Aramaki, there would have been various Predator factions as well.
Aramaki himself is left wondering as well as to why Disney just sits on the finished anime:
It was completed almost 7 years ago.and unfortunately I don't know why they didn't release. https://t.co/dZ9KW8nhPD
— Shinji Aramaki (@snjaramaki) May 21, 2023
Apparently, production for the series started back in 2016, before Disney acquired 20th Century Fox and took over their IPs. So maybe the reason Disney won't release the series is that they didn't even know it exists?
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Okay, rather unlikely, but I guess it would be hard to manage all the new brands and with Disney's focus on Marvel and Star Wars, the already finished anime could have just been forgotten.
Disney+ also just recently purged a lot of their shows, so perhaps they want to keep a clean slate and don't want to release a project not really associated with their brand.
If you haven't heard it yet, there's a Five Nights At Freddy's movie coming out:
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