Even with “Alien: Earth” finally giving the Xenomorph franchise a full-blown TV mythology and Predator roaring back in movies, Noah Hawley said fans shouldn’t expect an Alien vs. Predator-style mash-up on his show anytime soon. On a recent episode of SmartLess, the creator was asked point-blank if a Yautja might ever drop into his FX series — and he gently, but clearly, waved it off.
The question came in bluntly: “Or Predator coming onto your show?” Hawley answered just as plainly. “No, not onto the show.”
He then pivoted to praising what Dan Trachtenberg was already doing on the Predator side with “Prey” and “Predator: Badlands.” But for anyone hoping there was a secret whiteboard somewhere mapping out Xenomorph/Yautja story beats, Hawley shut that down too. “You know, I mean, I loved ‘Prey. I think he’s doing a great job with that franchise. He clearly has a plan there. You know, I’ve met Dan once,” he explained, before drawing a clear line between the two corners of the universe. “[But] we’re not kind of coordinating any of that stuff.”
Pressed a little further, he made it even simpler. “Yeah, yeah, okay, fine,” he said, laughing off the idea of a shared masterplan. “It’s not really my plan to do it.”
So for now, at least as far as Hawley was concerned, the two strands of the monster universe were staying in their own lanes: his show doing its own cerebral, corporate-dystopia take on Xenomorph horror, Trachtenberg steering the Yautja through their own evolution on the big screen, and no one drawing a versus symbol between them. If that ever changed, it isn’t going to be because the “Alien: Earth” writers’ room quietly baked in a crossover.
Listen to the whole podcast below.
