Alien vs Predator anime series is “finished” but Disney won’t release it

There’s a fully finished Alien vs Predator anime series sitting in a vault somewhere, but Disney won’t release it.

It’s safe to say that the Alien vs Predator franchise is one of the ambitious sci-fi crossovers in history. Blending together the creatures from the successful Alien and Predator series, the two films garnered over $310 million at the box office and became instant classics to sci-fi fans everywhere.

While there is little to no news about a third Alien vs Predator movie, fans have speculated that the AvP universe could be expanded in news ways, such as a TV show or maybe through a video game. And recently, their speculations were correct as it’s been revealed that there is an AvP anime series.

Now fans want to know what happened to series and if it will ever see the light of day, since it’s been 16 years since the last movie came out. So, here’s everything we know about the Alien vs. Predator anime series and why Disney won’t release it.

Alien vs Predator anime series is completed

The Perfect Organism Podcast posted an Alien Day special episode in which they hosted Joshua Izzo, the former licensing director at 20th Century Fox prior to Disney’s acquisition of the company.

In the interview, Izzo revealed that Disney is sitting on a 10-episode Alien vs Predator anime series he produced, stating: “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.”

20th Century Fox

Izzo also explained that he initially pitched the series as a standard animated show before it became an anime. Dave Bixler, the senior vice president of acquisitions at 20th Century Home Entertainment, helped Izzo get the project off the ground.

Izzo wanted to expand the brand of AvP and said that the 20th Century Fox consumers division should “be the masters of our own destiny rather than waiting for theatrical whenever a movie decides to come out.”

As the anime has never been released, there’s no official confirmation on who the series’ director was, though Izzo did state that they worked on “on a Halo piece, it was a Halo kind of like Animatrix series. So he’d done that, but he also did the Captain Harlock movie. It was beautiful.”

According to Alien vs Predator Galaxy, those credentials point to Shinji Aramaki, a well-know Japanese anime director and mechanical designer. Together, Izzo and Aramaki worked on the series, which is set sometime after the events of Alien vs Predator and Alien 4.

If they were aired when they were supposed to, the episodes would’ve been split into three DVDs for the West and aired individually on Japanese television.

Why didn’t Disney release the AvP anime?

While there’s no official reason why Disney didn’t release the Alien vs Predator anime, there is some speculation that it’s due to over-saturating the market.

As production started in 2016, Alien: Covenant was in early development and the last Predator movie, The Predator, hadn’t even been mentioned yet. The two films came out in 2017 and 2018, respectively, so it’s possible that 20th Century Fox didn’t want to flood the market with AvP content before both films hit theaters.

20th Century Fox

Then, when Disney acquired 20th Century Fox in 2019, the House of Mouse gained control of the Alien brand and, in turn, the unreleased anime series.

As Disney seems to be incredibly busy building out the Star Wars and Marvel universes, it’s unknown whether the Alien vs Predator anime series will ever see the light of day. But, there’s always hope they could launch it on the next Alien Day!

You can check out more of our TV and Movie coverage in the hubs below:

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