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Both films have a large corporation called the Wayland corporation which seems to be all controlling, in Alien they're a large haulage/terraforming company. In Death Race they run private prisons.

Are these set in the same universe? Is this naming a coincidence or are there some production nods to the naming?

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  • Look's like a homage but still want to know if there something else.
    – Ankit Sharma ♦
    Sep 14, 2013 at 20:43
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    I found nothing connecting the two. Nothing in the arena of production or writing. The name does not seem to appear in Alien (it is just called "The Company"), but appears in Aliens as "Weland/Yutani Corp". Anyway, maybe someone else has some better information, and thus why I dropped it as a comment instead of an answer.
    – Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2
    Sep 14, 2013 at 21:39
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    The film was produced by Paul W.S. Anderson who is not only responsible for Death Race 1, but also for Alien vs. Predator. - Hey, if Joss Whedon's Firefly can share a universe with the Alien franchise, why not Death Race?
    – Oliver_C
    Sep 14, 2013 at 23:02
  • @Oliver_C That Paul W.S. Anderson connection seems like likely possibility (/answer).
    – Napoleon Wilson ♦
    Sep 14, 2013 at 23:28
  • they are connected by the Weland company, which is the answer, but the answer should be written by @Oliver_C
    – Ben Plont
    Sep 14, 2013 at 23:34

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I'd say they may be loosely connected. Paul W.S. Anderson was the producer on Death Race 2, Death Race, and Alien vs. Predator. It's likely that including Weyland Corporation in Death Race 2 was an homage or in-joke, but there's nothing to say that it's not the same company (and therefore the films share the same universe).

It's also worth noting that Weyland-Yutani appears briefly in both Firefly and Angel. These shows were created by Joss Whedon, who also wrote Alien: Resurrection. Again, this is also probably an in-joke or Easter Egg, but worth mentioning.

Weyland-Yutani also appears in numerous other media, as in-jokes or visual references. The only one of these I can cite here is Red Dwarf, but you can see visual references to the Alien franchise all over the place.

References

Weyland-Yutani was a client of Wolfram & Hart in Angel - http://home.vicnet.net.au/~kwgow/cross_key.pdf

In the opening episode of Firefly, one of the characters fires a turret manufactured by Welyand-Yutani - http://firefly.wikia.com/wiki/Weyland-Yutani

A Weyland-Yutani ship appears in the spaceship graveyard in the Red Dwarf episode Psirens - http://home.vicnet.net.au/~kwgow/cross_key.pdf

It's also worth noting that the OP is not the first person to spot the connection. Empire Magazine's article The Most Evil Movie Corporations specifically states one of Weyland-Yutani's corporate activities as "operate privately-owned prisons with scant regard for the health or rehabilitation of inmates."

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