FX has offered up a thrilling new look at new TV series Alien: Earth – and it’s got sci-fi fans believing that the show will actually be a crossover of two of the genre’s most famous franchises.
As part of a showreel for its 2025 line-up, which you can watch above, the network gave us our best glimpse of Earth’s terrifying Xenomorph yet. But it’s not necessarily what you can see in the footage that has caught people’s attention, it’s what you can hear – and what they think they can hear is a Predator.
“I’m absolutely certain it’s just there because the sound editors wanted creepy monster sound effects, but there’s 100% a Predator snarl in that clip,” a viewer wrote on Reddit, pointing to the 0:43 mark. “We’re not getting that lucky.”
“Using the Predator clicking seems like a weird sound to use unless you’re teasing a predator,” said another.
“I wonder if this is actually an AvP show. I’m probably wrong, but it gives AvP vibes,” commented a third, as a fourth replied: “That would be a crazy twist, like if they never announce it and it just randomly appears in the middle of an episode. Would get the internet wild, for sure.”
Xenomorphs and Predators, or Yautja, haven’t been seen on screen together since Alien vs Predator: Requiem in 2007, and people have been itching for a reunion – even in video game form.
Interestingly, sneaking a Predator into an Alien project is exactly the way Alien: Romulus director Fede Alvarez said he’d do it if he was ever presented the chance of combining the two properties. “The way I would do it, most likely, if it could be done this way… It’s harder to keep secrets online… The best AVP will be the one that you don’t know is AVP until the other guy shows up,” he recently told Collider.
“You think you’re watching a Predator movie, and then they land in some place and there are creatures, and fucking hell, it’s a Xenomorph. That would get me. ‘Fuck yeah!’ You’d go crazy,” Alvarez laughed. “Or vice versa, you’re in an Alien movie, and then suddenly a mysterious creature is there, and you can hear that sound, and you see the cloak, and you go, ‘Is that a fucking Predator?’ And then turns out it is. That would be the way to do it, don’t you think? Once you put it in the title, it’s like, ‘Spoiler alert.'”
Others, however, are much less convinced by the latest theory. “I think it’s the sound of an egg opening. If you rewatch the first encounter with [John Hurt’s] Kane and the egg on the derelict it makes a very similar sound as it opens up”, one skeptic noted.
Created by Fargo and Legion showrunner Noah Hawley, the small-screen spin-off boasts a similar premise to previous feature-length Alien titles: “When a mysterious space vessel crash-lands on Earth, a young woman and a ragtag group of tactical soldiers make a fateful discovery that puts them face-to-face with the planet’s greatest threat.” Sydney Chandler, Alex Lawther, Samuel Blenkin, Essie Davis, Adarsh Gourav, and Timothy Olyphant star.
Alien: Earth premieres sometime in the summer. While we wait, check out our picks of the most exciting new TV shows heading our way.