In one of the movie's behind-the-scenes featurettes, director of photography Daniel Pearl stated that he wanted to visually differentiate this movie from its predecessor Alien vs. Predator (2004), which he criticized for its use of fixed cameras, wide shots and excessively bright lighting, because in his opinion, this revealed way too much of the creatures. Reasoning that monster horror works better in dark environments with documentary-style photography, Pearl employed hand-held cameras and dimly illuminated sets to get the desired effect. Ironically, the film would later be criticized mostly for its overuse of 'shaky cam' and excessively murky lighting, with people complaining that they couldn't see much of the action.
(at around 5 mins) This is the first movie in both the Predator and the AVP-based movies, that features a scene of the Predators' home planet.
The Predator was nicknamed "Wolf" by the filmmakers, after the character Winston Wolfe in Pulp Fiction (1994). His role in the film, like Wolfe's, is described as that of a "cleaner" - one who covers up assassinations, accidents, and other messy situations.
In the original script, the Predalien was to have died just before the crash of the Predator ship when a Predator kills it with his cannon, which occurred on page three or four of the script. A normal Alien would then kill the remaining Predators, and escape the wrecked ship with several facehuggers. It was re-written to incorporate the Predalien into the movie and make it the main antagonist, as the studio was very impressed by the concept.
Compared to the first film, which was accused of favoring the Xenomorphs over the Predators (as Paul W.S. Anderson was a bigger fan of the Alien films), this film was accused of the opposite by fans and critics. A single Predator in this film is able to dispatch numerous Xenomorphs with little effort, and the latter are made to look weak in comparison. This came as a result of The Brothers Strause openly preferring the Predator franchise instead.