Alien vs Predator is the first of the crossover movies featuring the Alien and the Predator. It features Sanaa Lathan, Raoul Bova and Lance Henriksen. It was directed by Paul W.S. Anderson.

Originally AVP would have been Alien 5. James Cameron had been working on a story for a 5th Alien film in the series. Ridley Scott had talked with Cameron stating that: “I think it would be a lot of fun, but the most important thing is to get the story right. ”In a 2002 interview Scott’s concept for the story was “to go back to where the Alien creatures were first found and explain how they were created”, which eventually led to the creation of Riddley Scott’s 2012 film, Prometheus.

Paul W.S. Anderson was inspired by the work of Erich von Däniken on how he believed early civilizations were able to construct massive pyramids with the help of aliens. Anderson wove this idea into Alien Vs Predator, describing a scenario which taught ancient humans how to build pyramids and used earth as a rite of passage every 100 years to hunt aliens. To explain how these civilizations would disappear without a trace. Anderson came up with a idea that if the predators were overwhelmed by aliens, they would use their self destruct weapons to kill everything in the area.

The crew tried using CGI to a minimum, as Anderson said that people in suits and puppets where much scarier than CGI monsters as they are “there in the frame”. Roughly 70% of the scenes in the film were created using suits, puppets and miniatures. The Alien Queen was filmed using variations in the film – one a 4.8 meter practical version, a 1.2 meter puppet and a CGI version. The Aliens and the Queen’s tails were all done with CGI as it was very difficult to do with puppetry.

Originally the film was released as PG-13 which upset fans of both series as the blood and the violence was cut down severely, leaving scenes feeling somewhat dry and sterile (the chest buster scene for example just felt wrong, we know from previous movies that this isn’t something which light in blood, don’t believe me, just check Alien 1). They did eventually release a R18 cut with digitally added blood to the movie, but that just looks bad. I really wish they filmed the blood as practical effects, but I can understand that the studio wanted to make some extra money on the movie.

Eight fun facts about Alien vs Predator

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  1. In a interview with director Paul W.S. Anderson, it was revealed that Arnold Schwarzenegger offered to reprise his role as Dutch Schaeffer (from Predator) at the end of the movie as a cameo, but only if he lost the election for California governor.
  2. Except for scenes with stand-ins, Ian Whyte played all the of the Predators.
  3. Alexa Woods calling an Alien an “Ugly Mother…” is a reference to the previous Predator films.
  4. The Antarctic setting on Bouvet Island is based on an unexplained “Vela incident” of September 22, 1979, where a satellite recorded a flash of light near the island.
  5. This is the first film in the Alien and Predator franchise to get a rating other than R.
  6. Peter Weller was at one stage attached to appear as a cameo as John Yutani, the other half of the infamous Weyland-Yutani” company from the alien films.
  7. This is the first Alien movie not to feature Sigourney Weaver, who has said in interviews the idea of a crossover ‘sounded awful’.
  8. Guilermo Del Toro was offered the director’s chair but opted to make Hellboy instead.