This news has actually been kicking around the internet for a few days, and if I had any interest whatsoever in Alien vs. Predator 2, I would’ve immediately dropped the candy and chloroform, exited the playground area and reported the info with all alacrity. Unfortunately I’m about as interested in another AvP as I am anything involving Star Wars now (Alien and Aliens are like the xenomorph Star Wars and Empire, and like Lucas’ franchise, everything that followed is a disappointment at best and devastatingly awful at worst), so you get lateness and I get an empty van.

Anyway, AvP2 (“No matter who wins, you lose AGAIN, chump”) got a pair of FX guys to make their feature debut on the next extraterrestrial conflict, even though only about 7 people actually liked the first one. Greg and Colin Strause will handle directing duties on the Fox flick, which supposedly again takes place here on Earth with humans stuck in the middle. The Brothers Strause are veteran commercial directors whose visual effects résumé includes Titanic and X-Men: The Last Stand. I hope they were involved with the parts of that movie that actually looked finished.

The brothers “really want to take it back to the original ‘Alien’ and ‘Predator’ films and make a serious, gritty horror film”, which they’ll probably not actually be allowed to do because even though they had the sense to take the dueling properties away from Paul WS Anderson, the studio will no doubt demand a glossy PG-13 product (and they want it ready for next summer). The sequel’s script comes from original AvP re-writer Shane Salerno, who I think also wrote some upcoming movie about a ridiculously huge killer shark.