Old is new again, and again

Here’s the problem with Hollywood: It just doesn’t know when to quit.

Take the big movie opening this week, “Alien Vs. Predator.” You can just imagine how one concept meeting might have gone over that pairing:

“Hey, how’s this for an idea?” junior producer No. 1 says. “We sign Britney Spears …”

“Stop right there,” junior producer No. 2 says. “We need the next Britney.”

“The next Britney?” No. 1 says. “The original is only 22 years old!”

“Exactly,” No. 2 says. “If you’re not a teen, you’re not the queen.”

At this point they order lunch. Several hours pass. Then:

“So, how about a horror movie?” No. 2 says.

“What, another ‘Scream’? Great,” says No. 1. “Nothing I like better than to watch a bunch of tight-abs get carved up by a guy in a hockey mask.”

“That’s ‘Halloween,’ ” No. 2 says.

“No, we need it for Christmas,” No. 1 says.

“I mean the movie with the hockey mask guy,” No. 2 says. “That was ‘Halloween.’ Or, wait, was it ‘Friday the 13th’?”

But No. 1 isn’t listening. “Friday’s no good,” he says. “We need a Wednesday release. That way, with the late-night Tuesday showings, we can really pump up the weekend box-office numbers.”

At this point No. 3 walks in.

“Look at this,” he says. He’s holding a copy of Variety with a headline that reads “Anderson at AVP Helm.” The story reports that “Mortal Kombat” director Paul W.S. Anderson is shooting a film titled “Alien Vs. Predator” in the Czech Republic.

“Damn,” No. 2 says. “Did they sign Britney?”

And so on.

You think this is a joke? How’s this for funny: There are more Hollywood movies being made from comic books than from any other single source. “Alien Vs. Predator,” which opens across the nation today, comes from a series of comics more than 15 years old.

The idea for that first series (others followed, of course) began a decade before with Ridley Scott’s original “Alien” (1979). Both it and John McTiernan’s “Predator,” which came along eight years later, were based on original ideas.

Or were they? For all its genuine alone-in-the-dark-with-a-big-BIG- bogeyman moments, “Alien” is simply the story of a space crew, heading home, being hunted by a fierce, egg-laying extraterrestrial with acid for spit.

“It! The Terror Beyond Space” told basically the same story in 1958 – though, true to the mores of the era, without the obvious sexual references.

And “Predator”? It, the story goes, was dreamed up when somebody mentioned that the only opponent Rocky Balboa hadn’t faced was the little alien named E.T. Yo, Adrian.

Look, considering how things work in the movie business, we’re lucky to get as few good movies as we do, with or without Ben Stiller. And no matter what else you think about them, the films that Scott and McTiernan put on the screen rank at the top of their horror/suspense/ action genres.

“Alien” in particular. The story of the Nostromo and its mostly doomed crew was a meditation compared to the theme-park thrill that James Cameron put on the screen with 1986’s “Aliens.” But in both, Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley remains the toughest woman action character this side of Linda Hamilton in “Terminator 2” (the other two in the “Alien” series are best ignored).

And who ended up becoming the star of the “Terminator” series? All together now: The current governor of California! If you don’t count anything touched by James Cameron, the best action film that Arnold Schwarzenegger ever starred in was McTiernan’s “Predator.”

Now we have the aliens vs. the interstellar predators, and only Lance Henriksen stands in their way.

Don’t get your hopes up. The movie has guys-love-spilled-guts concept written all over it.

There’s only one thing to wish for.

Maybe one of the creatures will eat the next Britney.