I thought Alien vs. Predator was kind of a cop-out, but I’m really excited about its sequel, Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem.

It opens this Christmas.

And while the first film offered up watered-down shadows of the individual franchises, this one promises to return to the darker, scarier roots of the original films.

Directors Greg and Colin Strause said all the right things in this interview with MTV:

“The studio knew that, although the last movie made a lot of money, it didn’t really resonate solidly with the fans,” admitted Greg Strause, one-half of the filmmaking duo billed as the Brothers Strause. “To get the same people back into the theater a second time, it was gonna be a bit of an uphill battle.”

“We really have to prove to the fans,” added his brother Colin, “that this movie’s gonna be very different from the last one.”

And this golden nugget:

Given the go-ahead to make their hard-R flick, the Brothers Strause are steering clear of the PG-13 traps that rendered their predecessor so despised that an “AVP” podcast recently declared, “The only thing [director] Paul [W.S.] Anderson did correctly was bring people closer together in their community hatred of him.”

“I don’t think anyone wanted us to talk to him,” Colin laughed, confirming that they haven’t met with Anderson. “This movie works even if you didn’t see [Anderson’s].”

The good folks over at Yahoo! Movies scored some really cool new promo photos, and you can also watch the trailer via Apple.

One of the photos in that new Yahoo! batch gives a glimpse of the Predator home planet, which suggests that not all the action takes place on Earth this time.

Sweet.

In fact, the Brothers Strause are already talking about the sequel:

The brothers told us that “AVP-R” definitely leads into another film. While this film takes place in an American Midwestern town, for the next film, they want to take the action back into space. As a matter of fact, they said that 20th Century Fox has no choice other than to agree to take it back into space following “AVP-R.”

While the brothers are currently in discussions with the studio about another pic, the studio is taking a wait-and-see approach. If “AVP-R” makes enough money, the brothers will get the green light for a sequel.

It sounds to me like this movie just might be what the fans were hoping for out of the first one.

We’ll find out soon enough!

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Update:

Check out this awesome Japanese poster for the movie, and go here if you’d like to watch the first five minutes.