I think he's pretty much said it's P3 - not a reboot, sidequel or retcon.
tmjhur on the big Blomkamp thread said that he's excited by what's happening at Fox at the moment and that something big is cooking. I came to this thread thinking about that and I think tmjhur has a point.
Tossing out the old EU, New novels, new comics, new game, new word on "Paradise", that big book that SM worked on, this movie with Shane. That's a lot of movement on a "dead" franchise.
Look, whatever happens with Shane's movie, it will follow the BS2 (the Blake Snyder Beat Sheet). Virtually all Hollywood movies follow this template, but I think that the two guys who wrote "Herbie: Fully Loaded" put it best when they say "Put a a guy in a tree. Throw rocks at him. Get him out of the tree." (And the guys who wrote "Herbie: Fully Loaded have written the best "how to" screen writing guide ever. They don't care that they write shit, only that they get paid shitloads. It's an amazing and funny book.).
I digress - I very much doubt if Predator 3 will be risk-taking film - like, we often read on here "I want a film in Yatjua language from the Predators point of view" - that won't happen. I will take a forfeit on that too - If it does, I'll go get a a back, sack and crack wax.
If tmjhur is right (or even partly right) Shane's movie may function in a wider universe that we don't even know is being built. The shared universe stuff is hot right now -- Disney and WB are doing it with Marvel and DC. Then again, Fox does have Star Wars! But that's pitching at a whole other audience.
I've always thought that where Star Wars went wrong with the last three was pitching them at kids. These new ones will have to be kid friendly now, I guess, but Lucas missed a trick with the prequels and they should have been marketed at the 30somethings who pay big bucks on merchandise and will keep buying recuts for ever. Most (not all) kids are pretty transient with their crazes because there's so much choice now - this week its Star Wars, next week The Avengers, then we have Lord of the Rings... Oh look it's Superman. In the 70s and 80s we had dick in the way of TV and movies compared to now. But SWVII, that "sell it to the grown ups" ship has sailed.
Aliens and Predator, however, don't suffer from that need to appease younger viewers. I think AvP succeeded in that it probably got a lot of younger people into the franchise (those teens will be 20somethings now), but even the most ardent AvP hater couldn't say that the movie was pitched and made with kids in mind.
So maybe - just maybe - tmjhur is on the right lines and we could be getting a whole load of new stuff from Fox for us gnarly grown ups. Maybe someone there has realised that the older folks are the ones with the disposable incomes who will keep paying for stuff over and over again *lol*.
Maybe there's life in the old alien and predator dogs yet.
But as I say above, I really think that P3 will be a safe film, but I wonder if it will serve to set something bigger up. That seems to be the trend at the moment anyway - "I have a franchise and I'm gonna use it."