Some of them may have even wondered if there’s any possibility of the two franchises one day crossing over, since let’s face it, a movie that stars both Kate Beckinsale’s vampire Selene and Millo Jovovich’s Alice would be pretty kick-ass. The coincidence that directors Len Wiseman and Paul W.S. Anderson happen to be married to their respective leading ladies makes it an even more intriguing prospect.
It’s a question fans of both franchises have wondered and when Shock Till You Drop had a chance to talk to Wiseman and Anderson at Comic-Con we decided to throw it out there. After all, Anderson was the man behind 20th Century Fox’s Aliens vs. Predator, which (relatively) successfully allowed the studio to relaunch both science fiction horror franchises. Read what they had to say after the jump.
“My aim when I made ‘Alien vs. Predator’ was hopefully I was going to take two moribund franchises and not only make a successful film but reenergize those franchises,” Anderson told us in an exclusive interview. “I always said when I made that movie that the thing that would make me the happiest as a fanboy would be to see another Predator movie and see another Alien movie and that came to pass. At the time when I made ‘AvP,’ it was not seen as a slam-dunk movie, that’s for sure. The previous ‘Alien’ movie and last ‘Predator’ movie were seen as real disappointments so I think ‘AvP’ did kind of reenergize everything. In the ‘Underworld’ and ‘Resident Evil’ world, both of those franchise are quite vibrant and healthy so the idea of a crossover is probably too premature.”
So, while the fans may want to see it, Anderson was dubious.
“Knowing Kate and Milla, I’m sure they would love to work together and maybe that will happen, but I doubt that kind of crossover would occur,” he continued, but thought that bringing the two franchises might be difficult. “It’s more complicated because Capcom owns ‘Resident Evil’ and Sony finances the movies but they don’t own the movies. The first ‘Resident Evil’ was an independent film, it wasn’t a studio movie. ‘Alien vs. Predator’ was complicated but easier because they both were owned by 20th Century Fox. The same is not true of ‘Underworld’ and ‘Resident Evil.”
On the other hand, in our earlier interview with Len Wiseman for his upcoming movie Total Recall, he agreed that a crossover could be a cool thing.
“What’s funny is that they’re very similar, both at Screen Gems, both husband-wife teams and both on the same number right now and you go to Screen Gems, and they’re all right next to each other. We joke about it a lot, Paul and I, but I don’t know. I as a fan would love to see it, but it would have to make sense within both worlds.”
In terms of the future of the Underworld franchise, we’re more likely to see it return to comics and Wiseman even hopes to maybe start a cable series similar to how the Blade movies eventually spun-off onto television.
“I’m always trying to get something going but one, I just want to make sure the quality is really good. There are few things on Underworld we jumped right into, we did some action figures, we did some other things, and they were pretty bad, so I want to make sure there’s some quality control on it. I’d like to see that and I’d like to see it branch into a television series as well. Just the two houses and the warring families, I think is really rich and I’d like to see that go to cable and be as dark as it can be.”
Look for more with both directors on their respective new movies very soon.
