Hollywood is nothing if not practical.

Well, actually that’s not true at all. It’s probably the least practical place on the planet. Witness the success of the waste of space that is Ashton Kutcher or how anything starring Angelina Jolie or Kevin Costner gets greenlighted.

However, Hollywood tends to be pretty pragmatic when it comes to money and they increasingly have become gun-shy when it comes to bankrolling movies. It seems Hollywood has this strange obsession with money and the making of it.

Quite often it’s fanboys like me who lose out. News of cool projects shuttered because of cost comes daily on Web sites like Ain’t It Cool News and Dark Horizons.

But when it seemed like all was lost, the powers that be came up with a winning formula for genre films. Simply, take two characters from different movie franchises and throw the word “versus” in there and watch the money roll in.

The most obvious example of this is the recent “Freddy Vs. Jason.” The last Jason film grossed only $13 million, while the last Freddy film cleared a measly $18 million. However, thrown together for the first time, they sliced and diced the competition to the tune of $82 million. A new trend was born.

“Alien Versus Predator” is set to become the next entry in this burgeoning genre. The plot is dubious: Hoping to lure a Predator clan to Antarctica using Alien eggs, a rogue team of scientists is caught in an intergalactic war between the two extremely violent species. Yet, who really cares about story when there is the potential to see an alien burst out of the chest of a predator? That’s freaking cool.

And as long as we’re on this track, I had a few ideas of my own …

“Kangaroo Jack Vs. Leatherface”

The stars of two most critically derided movies of this young century should go at it with a vengeance. Imagine the sight of Leatherface wearing the pelt of Kangaroo Jack, or Leatherface being forced to put on sunglasses and rap at the whim of the world’s most diabolical marsupial. The winner gets to hunt down all of the critics who dared to bad-mouth them.

“The Asteroid from ‘Armageddon’ Vs. Halle Berry”

Man, do I hate Halle Berry.

“The Disease from ‘Outbreak’ Vs. Freddie Prinze Jr.”

Man, do I hate Freddie Prinze Jr.

“Tommy Lee Vs. Kid Rock”

Just who will earn the love of Pamela Anderson for the brief time she has left on Earth, thanks to the hepatitis C that one of them gave her? Note: This will not be the highest grossing movie that Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson have starred in together.

“Alien Versus Predator” is due in theaters in August 2004. As for my ideas, they will hit the silver screen somewhere between never and ever. It seems “Feltes Vs. Hollywood” is one fight I can’t win.