TV
A Finished “Alien vs. Predator” Anime Series Is Apparently Locked Up in the Disney Vault
The Alien and Predator franchises, long connected in the world of comic books, have remained separate entities in the many years since Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem crash landed in theaters back in 2007, with Disney now holding the rights to both franchises. Predator returned last year in Prey, while two brand new Alien projects are in the works – a movie and a TV series.
But will we ever see the Alien and Predator franchises crossover again in the future? Well, it turns out there’s an existing crossover project between the two that we HAVEN’T ever seen.
The website AvP Galaxy informs us this week that the beans were spilled by Josh Izzo during a recent episode of the Perfect Organism podcast. Izzo is the former Director of Licensing at 20th Century Fox, and he revealed during the podcast interview that a finished Alien vs. Predator animated series has been locked up in Disney’s vault since they took over Fox.
Izzo explains, “… there is sitting at Disney now, at 20th [Studios], 10 episodes of a fully completed Alien vs. Predator anime series that I produced. 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. Dave Bixler was head of Home Entertainment at the time – from a creative perspective – and he championed this for me.”
“At this time Covenant was still nascent and The Predator had not happened yet so the brands weren’t doing anything at the moment. It was still open season for our sci-fi brands,” Izzo continues. “So I went to Home Entertainment, [to] the woman who was in charge of marketing, her name was Rio Cyrus, [an] absolute genius, and [to head of] production Dave Bixler. I pitched them and I said ‘we own nearly 30 years of comic book content of Alien and Predator and AvP. No rights, no strings. Dark Horse did an amazing job but it’s all 20th Century Fox. It’s ours to do with as we please. Why don’t we adapt the original AvP comic book series with Machiko and Broken Tusk? Let’s just do that. Here’s your storyboard. It’s done, it’s finished.'”
From there, an unnamed director was brought on board the project, which morphed into a new storyline set in the “way deep future – post-AvP, post-Alien 4.” They got the green light and the plan was to debut the series on Alien Day in 2016, but the combination of Alien: Covenant and The Predator popping up, and Disney taking over Fox, spelled the end of the project.
Will it ever see the light of day? Your guess is as good as ours…
You can listen to Perfect Organism’s full chat with Josh Izzo below.
TV
“I’m the Grim Reaper” – Sam Raimi Teams with ’10 Cloverfield Lane’ Writers on Gory, Funny Webtoon Adaptation
The Wattpad/Webtoons and Grave Weaver-created series “I’m the Grim Reaper” is nearing its 200th episode, and it’s also getting a new TV series adaptation with talented names behind it. Deadline reports that celebrated filmmaker Sam Raimi is teaming up with 10 Cloverfield Lane scribes Josh Campbell & Matt Stuecken on the new series.
The series follows “Scarlet, a young woman who wakes up in the ninth circle of hell with no idea how she got there. Satan offers to send Scarlet back to Earth if she’ll work as his reaper. But it doesn’t take long for Scarlet to realize that Satan’s offer is even worse than she feared.”
The story is said to fit perfectly into “Raimi’s wheelhouse, striking a deft balance between scares, gore and humor.”
Sam Raimi and Zainab Azizi will executive produce the series with Weaver, who’ll also team on the development process. Raimi may be most known for his Spider-Man and Evil Dead movies, but the filmmaker has been busy behind the scenes producing. More recently, Raimi produced this week’s action brawler Boy Kills World and last year’s 65, with Don’t Move on the way.
The “I’m the Grim Reaper” webtoon launched in 2019, delving into the humor and horrors of reaping souls in Hell. That it’s on the cusp of airing its 200th episode means no shortage of story and mythology for Campbell and Stuecken to pull from.
Stay tuned for additional details on this new series as they arrive.
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