Alien vs Predator 2004 (AVP): Cast, Plot and Ending Explained

AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004), directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, sends a hired expedition beneath the Antarctic ice, where two species have been waiting to hunt each other. Those species are the Xenomorph and the Yautja (the Predator creature).

It all begins when a satellite detects an odd source of heat under Bouvet Island. Charles Bishop Weyland, played by Lance Henriksen, is a billionaire with a terminal illness, and he treats the signal as his last chance to put his name on a major discovery. He pays for a crew of specialists and mercenaries to go and look. Among them are Alexa Woods (Sanaa Lathan), who knows how to lead people through harsh terrain, and Sebastian de Rosa (Raoul Bova), an archaeologist from Italy.

When the group arrives at an isolated whaling station, they find that a shaft has already been drilled into the ice, aimed at an enormous pyramid below. If you are new to the saga, the Predator movies in order guide shows where this crossover fits, and the Predator movies hub lists every film.

The full plot of Alien vs Predator (2004) runs from a satellite scan to a Queen Alien dropped into the sea, with a pyramid that rearranges itself in between.

Thermal scans show a giant pyramid far below the surface, and the team travels to an abandoned whaling station above it. The Predators arrive first, kill the people at the surface and burn a path through the ice. The humans climb down into the pyramid and find a chamber of skeletons with ruptured rib cages. Their arrival wakes a Queen Alien, and facehuggers start implanting people, who soon give birth to adult Xenomorphs.

The pyramid's walls keep shifting, which splits the survivors and sets the Predators and Aliens against each other. Sebastian decodes carvings that show the Predators have used the pyramid for ages as a coming of age hunt, with humans serving as hosts for the prey. Alexa decides the Predators must win, because a loose Alien would threaten the whole world.

Sebastian is infected, and Alexa puts him down at his own request. She then teams up with Scar, the last surviving Predator, and he crafts gear for her from Alien remains. Scar triggers his wrist bomb and destroys the pyramid and most of the Aliens.

On the surface, Alexa and Scar trap the Queen with a chain attached to a water tower and drop her over a cliff into the sea. The Queen mortally wounds Scar before she falls.

Alien vs Predator (2004) opened in US theaters on August 13, 2004, according to Box Office Mojo.

Australia followed on September 30, 2004, and the UK on October 22, 2004, both per Box Office Mojo. The Numbers lists Australia as the start of international release. No premiere date, city or venue has been published for this film, so the wide release dates are the dated events.

The film took $80 million domestically and $97 million internationally, for $177 million worldwide on a $60 million budget, according to Box Office Mojo. For the series wide comparison, see Predator box office.

The ending of Alien vs Predator (2004) shows the surviving Predators honoring Alexa, then reveals a hybrid creature bursting from Scar's chest, which sets up the sequel.

Other Predators arrive on the ice after the pyramid is destroyed. Their elder honors Alexa by marking her face and giving her one of their spears. She leaves Antarctica in a snowcat. On the Predator ship, the fallen Scar is laid out for farewell, and a new creature bursts from his chest. This hybrid of Alien and Predator hints at further trouble.

In my opinion, the spear is the most important beat. The carvings Sebastian decodes say the pyramid is a coming of age hunt in which humans serve as hosts for the prey, so a human being marked as a hunter, and handed a weapon, rewrites the rules the pyramid was built on. It could be argued that the elder treats Alexa as the one who completed Scar's hunt, since she helped drop the Queen over the cliff with the water tower chain. That is an interpretation, because the film does not spell it out.

The contrast with the earlier films is useful here. In Predator (1987), a single creature stalks Dutch Schaefer's mercenary team through a Central American jungle, and in Predator 2 one hunter works through a Los Angeles heat wave in 1997. Both are lone, private hunts. Paul W. S. Anderson instead frames hunting as a clan ritual with an elder, a ceremony and a shared pyramid, which is a bigger and more organized picture of the Yautja. That is a retcon of scale more than of rules, and I think it is the film's most interesting idea even if the human characters around it are thin.

The chestburster is blunter. The Queen mortally wounds Scar before she falls, and perhaps that is how the creature found its host, although the film never explains the mechanism. The design also fits the production. Screen Daily, citing press materials, reports that most of the effects were done physically, with creature work by Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr., so the newborn hybrid is a practical creation sitting beside the pyramid sets built in Prague. Practical monsters age more gracefully than most early 2000s digital ones, in my view.

The hybrid leads straight into AVP Requiem, where a Predator ship carrying a dead hunter is overrun by a hybrid born from a Predator and an Alien, and the wreck lands near Gunnison, Colorado. For Alexa's own arc, see Alexa Woods.

Alien vs Predator (2004) was filmed in Prague, Czech Republic, where the pyramid and other sets were built in a studio.

Screen Daily reports that most of the sets were built at a studio in Prague, and Wikipedia names Barrandov Studios. The story is set on Bouvetøya Island near Antarctica, but the ice and the shifting pyramid are studio builds.

Several details about Alien vs Predator (2004) stand out, from its disputed budget to its single returning cast member.

• Lance Henriksen was the only cast member to have appeared in earlier franchise films, as noted by Screen Daily.
• Box Office Mojo lists the budget at $60 million, while Screen Daily and The Numbers both report a higher figure.
• Creature effects were by Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr., and Woodruff also plays the Alien called Grid.
• Most of the effects were done physically rather than with CG, according to Screen Daily citing press materials.
• Most of the sets were built at a studio in Prague.
• The production countries are listed as the US, UK, Czech Republic, Canada and Germany by The Numbers.
• The film is placed fifth in the franchise's chronological order and third by release order.