A Secret ‘Predator’ Movie, An ‘Alien’ Sequel and ‘Speed 3’ on the Table: A Chat with 20th Century Studios Boss Steve Asbell

Interview highlights (Speed 3 comment was just a joke.)

Alien: Romulus was supposed to go straight to streaming, but that changed right before filming. So what prompted that change?

It was started as a streaming movie because we started development when we were in COVID and it wasn’t clear what our strategy was going to be theatrical or streaming. At the time we had different sorts of budget categories for streaming, which we were always circumspect about not wanting to spend too much money on streaming movies. We didn’t know quite yet how they would perform based on the metrics. And the truth is we started it hoping that theatrical would return to some measure of normal. But we made that film and, frankly, every other film we’ve made for streaming, with the same care and curation as we do our theatrical movies.

What’s the next step for Alien?

We’re working on a sequel idea now. We haven’t quite closed our deal with Fede [Alvarez], but we are going to, and he has an idea that we’re working on. The two survivors, Rain and Andy, played by Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson, were real highlights of the film. And so I always think of it like, “Wow, where do people want to see them go next?” We know there’s going to be aliens. We know there’s going to be great horror set pieces. But I fell in love with both of them and I want to see what their story is.

A Master and Commander prequel?

I’m trying so hard. It’s the first movie I worked on at Fox twenty years ago. We have a great script. It just needs the right director.

Here’s a big one. Will the next Predator movie get a theatrical release? [Editors note: this conversation took place before Disney dated Predator: Badlands for a 2025 release in theaters.]

Yes. And no.

You’re killing me here.

Yes, a Predator movie will have a theatrical. I’ll tell you very simply. After Prey became a success, Dan [Trachtenberg] came back and said he didn’t want to do Prey 2. And we’re like, “What do you want to do?” And he rattled off a bunch of ideas that were really crazy but really cool. We’ve actually done two of them. Two are coming out next year. One I can’t talk about yet, but the other one is the live-action Predator film with Elle Fanning that just wrapped in New Zealand. That’ll be out theatrically sometime next year.

You’re blowing my mind. Let’s tackle this one at time. One Predator movie is coming out theatrically?

It’s titled Badlands and it is an absolutely bonkers idea. It is a sci-fi thing, but it’s not what everybody thinks it is. And I mean, it’s awesome. It is so nuts. But in Dan, we trust.

Now you said there’s a second Predator movie.

There’s a second Predator movie that we have different plans for. Dan has actually directed both.

So there’s a secret Predator movie—

There’s a secret Predator movie that will come out before the theatrical one but I can’t say anything about yet.

Fine. Will we eventually see another Alien vs. Predator?

Probably.

Not sure how I feel about that.

It wouldn’t be in the way you think. That’s the thing. Not in the way that it will just be called Alien vs. Predator or anything like the original movies. If we do this, they’ll be organically created out of these two franchises that we’ve continued with characters that we fall in love with and those characters will combine…perhaps. But we haven’t gotten to that point. And we’re not just going to bang it out.