Dry your eyes, fanboys! Our collective years of disappointed sobbing are nigh about to end! Our wringing of hands, wondering when, if ever in our lifetimes, we would see "Alien vs. Predator" may soon be over.

To me, for a movie to succeed, it needs an Alien, a Predator, and Lance Henriksen. And no recent movies have really come close.

"Alien vs. Predator" is coming August 6, 2004.

Henriksen will play the human founder of the company that ends up making the android that Henriksen himself played in "Aliens." He also played Bishop in "Alien 3," but I refuse to acknowledge that movie's existence.

We could have "Freddy vs. Jason" to thank for this. 90 percent of those movies combined stunk pretty good, yet "Freddy vs. Jason" was quite fun. And only two of the six Alien or Predator movies are slap-assed. So by that mathematical logic, "Alien vs. Predator" should be 20 times as fun as "Freddy vs. Jason"! Or something like that. I don't do math.

Both of these movies have been completely unlikely for years and years. I am man enough to admit that I have wept bitter tears of disappointment every time I see that Alien skull in the Predator ship on "Predator 2."

Is it really possible that we might get, within two years, both "Freddy vs. Jason" AND "Alien vs. Predator"?

Now do Jaws vs. Cujo. Ooh! Ooh! Hellraiser vs. Regan from the Exorcist! Ooh! Kramer vs. Kramer! Wait. That last one is asking too much.

Ah, we can always dream, can't we? No one would ever do a movie with Dustin Hoffman AND Meryl Streep. Moviemaking technology is just too limited.