Alien vs. Predator anime series: 10 episodes are complete and sitting in the Disney vault

Back in early 2020, we heard mention of an Alien vs. Predator anime series that had been made before the 20th Century Fox / Disney merger and never released. Now the folks at the Perfect Organism podcast have scored an interview with Joshua Izzo, who made Alien Day an official event while working at Fox. During this interview, Izzo confirmed that an Alien vs. Predator anime series was produced, all ten episodes were completed… and now they’ve just been sitting on a shelf (a shelf that is now inside the Disney vault) for years.

Izzo said (with thanks to AVP Galaxy for the transcript), “One thing that did not happen during Alien Day in 2016 was – 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. … So while I was setting up Alien Day and starting to lay the pieces in place I went to the head of our division. His name was Jeffrey Godsick, he ran consumer products at the time and I said “hey listen, I want to pitch this idea of a direct to DVD Alien and/or Alien/Predator and/or Predator animation that we the consumer products division can sell against. Let us be the masters of our own destiny rather than waiting for theatrical whenever a movie decides to come out” because 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 so he was like “yeah, it’s a great idea, go. 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 Circle C 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. Here, it’s done, it’s finished. Like just take this and go make that into an animated movie, then we can use that as a springboard for consumer products. … But the director who they brought on board said “this is cool and I’m down…” and he happened to be a really good director. He had worked on a Halo piece (Halo Legends). So he’d done that, but he also did the Captain Harlock movie. It was beautiful. He goes “I have another idea. Can I do my own thing?” He pitches us a whole new story, a brand new story. And so myself, as kind of Keeper of the Canon, plus we bring in Dave Baker and Eric Calderon…we bring them in as Western animation consultants and producers. We all sit down and we craft the story and we crack the idea and we find a place within our established canon. I put it way deep future, post-AvP, post-Alien 4. it’s deep future stuff, where we said “this won’t compete with anything that’s happening in our core timeline.” So if you ever want to do another movie or tell any of the stories on Earth, we’re all square. It won’t overlap, nothing will happen, Finally we all come to an agreement. We green light it and we go. We’re making 10 episodes. It was going to be released as three direct to DVD and/or streaming movies here in the West. 10 episodes on Japan television.“

And then it was never released at all, shelved when Alien: Covenant and The Predator started moving forward. It’s a shame, because I’m not even an animation watcher and I would still love to watch this show, since I’m an Alien / Predator / Alien vs. Predator fan. Chances are I would have enjoyed it more than I enjoyed Alien: Covenant and The Predator… And I’m sure most other fans would love to see it as well. Here’s hoping it will make it out into the world at some point, somehow. Now that 20th Century Studios / Disney are producing Predator and Alien projects for the Hulu streaming service, I don’t know why they wouldn’t just drop this show on Hulu with them. Izzo confirmed that he knows the people who are in charge of the Alien and Predator franchises now, and they are “very aware” of the anime’s existence.

Izzo also described a couple of the Predators: “One is a cyborg and has a fully cybernetic arm and a cybernetic mandible. It’s super rad. One we called Bone because all of his weapons were made out of giant tusks. He was so cool.“

The director of this Alien vs. Predator anime was likely Shinji Aramaki. AVP Galaxy notes that he has also directed both animated Starship Troopers movies, a couple Appleseed movies, Ultraman, and Blade Runner: Black Lotus.

Would you like to see the Alien vs. Predator anime get taken off the shelf and released? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.