Last year gave sci-fi fans a lot to be excited about, as we were given not only the first live-action Alien TV series with Alien: Earth, but we also got to see Predator: Badlands arrive in theaters, marking the first installment in which a deadly Yautja was the protagonist. These two franchises previously collided on the big screen in both 2004 and 2007, and with Disney owning both franchises and both Alien and Predator being revived, fans can’t help but wonder how long we have to wait until a crossover. Even though Season 2 of Alien: Earth doesn’t start shooting until May, star Sydney Chandler weighed in on how her Wendy would handle such a bout. Chandler’s latest film, Anima, premieres March 12 at the South by Southwest Film Festival.
Speaking with MovieWeb about whether Wendy could handle a Yautja, Chandler confessed:
“I don’t know … I mean, we’d have to try. I think she would believe she could, absolutely, but I think she’s still figuring out her strengths and that’s the beauty of it. Kids are so brave. They don’t think of consequences and that is a superpower and that can also be a weakness, so, I mean, that would be really fun to see. I’d love to play that, but I don’t know.”
Throughout the history of both franchises, fans have seen humans, synthetics, and intergalactic monsters. Part of what made Alien: Earth so exciting is that it introduced us to the idea of hybrids: super-strong synthetic bodies that contained the consciousness of humans. Key to this scientific advancement, though, is that it was the consciousness of young children that needed to be transferred, with the attitudes of these hybrids being juxtaposed against their adult forms.
Sydney Chandler and Samuel Blenkin star in ‘Alien: Earth’FX
A crossover between the two properties seems like an inevitability, though no concrete plans for such an event have emerged, outside of Easter eggs appearing in both franchises. While she hasn’t started shooting Season 2, or even read scripts, Chandler expressed some of the things she hopes she gets to explore as Wendy this season:
“I think there’s so many ways for her to grow and change and we really watched her go from innocence to more — her eyes are open and she’s accepted the machine. She’s gotten colder and so I’d like to warm her up again and see where that takes her, after your innocence is lost. And then playing more with the equality and differences of the creatures, because she is the only one of her kind and she is alien in her own form and so there’s a really interesting space there to experience that and maybe play with the fear involved or the danger involved, because they’re equal.”
Much like series creator Noah Hawley did with his Fargo adaptation, Alien: Earth is less of an extension of the source material and more of a remix of the various components that made all predecessors so fascinating. Even Chandler isn’t fully aware of the series’ future, as she noted, “It’s like the Predator question — I don’t know where she stands and she doesn’t know and we haven’t gotten scripts yet, but just talking about it a little bit, Noah’s great at giving riddles, so I’ve been biting at the bit to get scripts. Those are my hopes for it, though, but I trust him. We were able to bring in Peter Pan and it worked, so wherever he goes with it, I’m game.”
With Season 2 of Alien: Earth only shooting this spring, it likely won’t premiere until 2027. Stay tuned for updates on the release date of Anima after its world premiere at SXSW.