Disney Apparently Has a Finished Alien vs. Predator Anime Series It Isn’t Releasing

Disney apparently has a finished Alien vs. Predator anime series that’s 10 episodes long, but the House of Mouse is keeping the series under lock and key.

During an Alien Day episode of the Perfect Organism Podcast last month, Joshua Izzo, the former licensing director at 20th Century Fox prior to Disney’s acquisition of the company and founder of Alien Day in 2016, shared details about the anime and why it hadn’t hit the airwaves yet.

“There is, sitting at Disney now, at 20th Studios, 10 episodes of a fully completed Alien vs. Predator anime series that I produced,” Izzo said. “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.”

Before it became an anime, Izzo said he pitched the idea of an Alien vs. Predator animated series to then Home Entertainment head Dave Bixler, who championed the project. Then he presented the idea to Jeffrey Godsick, who was head of consumer products.

“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,'” Izzo explained. At the time, Alien Covenant was still in the early stages of development The Predator hadn’t been announced yet.

Once Godsick approved the pitch, Izzo presented it to Home Entertainment, showing storyboards and a complete idea for it. He argued that an animated series for Alien vs. Predator would be easy for 20th Century Fox to produce since it owned nearly 30 years of comic book content for Alien, Predator, and Alien vs. Predator with no rights difficulties whatsoever.

After some discussions, they brought in a director who, according to Izzo, worked on Halo Legends and Harlock: Space Pirate, and pitched an entirely different story for the series. According to Alien vs. Predator Galaxy, the director is rumored to be Shinji Aramaki who, aside from Halo Legends and Harlock, helmed Starship Troopers, Appleseed, Appleseed Ex Machina, and Blade Runner: Black Lotus.

Together with Baker and Calderon as Western animation consultants, Izzo and Aramaki worked on 10 episodes of the series, which is set sometime after the events of Alien vs. Predator and Alien 4. The episodes would be split into three DVDs for the West, and aired individually on Japanese television.

Aramaki is known for blending 2D animation with CGI, which means the Alien vs. Predator series would likely follow that style rather than traditional 2D. But then again, we have no idea when Disney will release the anime, if it decides to do so at all.

Cristina Alexander is a freelance writer for IGN. To paraphrase Calvin Harris, she wears her love for Sonic the Hedgehog on her sleeve like a big deal. Follow her on Twitter @SonicPrincess15.