The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
City could be destroyed starting on Christmas
This Christmas in Aliens vs. Predator 2: Requiem, two of the world’s worst walking nightmares will wage their most brutal battle ever—and Gunnison may be destroyed.
"That’s appalling," says Gunnison resident Stephanie Aeschliman. "Sure it’s cold here, but the ice fishing is pretty decent and there’re a couple of bars that aren’t bad."
While locals have been expecting an explosion of Gunnison interest with the annexation of the Gunnison Rising development, Aeschliman says she never expected fireworks of this magnitude.
Suffice to say Aeschliman was relieved to hear the brutal battle, which literally puts Gunnison in the crosshairs of some of the scariest creatures ever, would only be fought on film—and the actual filming was done in British Columbia.
The movie, which sounds like a modern version of the Reagan era drama, Red Dawn—where an unlikely little band of plucky Colorado rednecks fight off the entire Soviet Army—will have a "very blue collar sort of tone to it," co-director Greg Strause told IESB.net.
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Of course, instead of staving off the Red Menace, the gritty small-town characters in Aliens VS. Predator 2 will have their hands full with sci-fi monsters. AVP2 Productions, Inc. a subsidiary of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, is the producer of Alien vs. Predator 2.
In the film, a young sheriff, his ex-con best friend and a female soldier lead an ensemble of desperate townspeople when Aliens and a Predator "cleaner" do battle in the tranquil southwest Colorado mountain town of Gunnison.
There will be plenty of special effects, but Colin Strause—the other half of the horror film-directing brother duo—says the film puts the monsters right into the Gunnison environment.
"We’re actually trying to do every alien shot on camera," he says.
Although Gunnison Chamber of Commerce director Tammy Scott says they’ve been working with Twentieth Century Fox to recreate Gunnison business logos to give the movie an air of authenticity, in the film’s rendition of Gunnison, it’s always raining and the forest scenes look suspiciously like Pacific boreal rainforest.
In the story, the only thing saving civilization (besides the gutsy Gunnisonites) is the Predator, who producer John Davis characterizes as a kind of eco-warrior.
"He doesn’t want to leave any carnage behind on Earth that could upset the planet’s balance," says Davis.
That should please Crested Butte’s vegan-eating, patchouli-wearing, wet-wool-smelling tele-skiers, but Scott says it’s too early to tell if the film will have far-reaching economic repercussions for the valley.
"I don’t know," she says. "Maybe we’ll have tourists coming here to see if we actually got destroyed or not."
Aliens VS. Predator 2 will be released on Tuesday, December 25.
