The Predator may be one of the fiercest (and ugliest!) movie monsters in film history, but come 2018, a ragtag squad of jaded, shellshocked soldiers will be primed and ready to exterminate the extra-terrestrial threats when they arrive on our doorsteps. And that’s threats plural.
For in Shane Black’s sci-fi reboot, a number of hunter-aliens descend upon a suburban setting to begin their killing spree. But it looks like they’re about to meet a strong and, crucially, human resistance. As Thomas Jane revealed to Shadow Nation recently (via Bloody Disgusting), The Predator chronicles the story of war veterans pulled into a brutal, interspecies brawl, while there also appears to be elements of a UFO conspiracy thrown in for good measure.
But alongside all that, there will also be a healthy dose of humor. Or at least, that’s according to Edward James Olmos, who recently told Cinema Blend the following about what fans can expect.
I haven’t seen any of it, but it’s gonna be funny. The kids in the thing. Yeah, the humor. Huge. Huge. I mean I was in shock, because, you know this is a really intense franchise, and it still is. Don’t get me wrong. You’re gonna be inside of it. But the characters are… what he did — Shane is an incredibly gifted writer, and he’s a great director, and so he ended up getting an incredible ensemble, and when I reached it they had already been filming for three months so they were a unit. So I jump in as the General and there were some moments where I just had to laugh in the scene and I couldn’t be laughing in the scene. ‘I’m sorry guys. Really, I’m sorry.’
This is definitely surprising to hear, as previous films in the franchise haven’t really had many laughs. Still, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as Black’s a terrific writer, and as Olmos says further in the interview, things get pretty crazy once The Predator gets going.
Because Keegan (Michael Key) and Thomas Jane, they make… they’re paired off in groups of three groups. Six guys. The way they work, they were all post-traumatic stress disorder guys who were inside of an insane asylum. A mental hospital. Then they put the lead character in there to kind of make them disappear, because they want them kind of out of the picture. And so he gets involved and then boom, the world goes crazy and these kids are released. But out of a freaky incident with some of the Predators. It’s crazy. It’s so crazy. I’m excited for it, and I don’t know what’s gonna happen. I got a good feeling about it. I mean if it’s really funny, and yet deadly like Predator is.
“You’ll never see him coming.” Once scheduled for a release in February of 2018, when Shane Black’s R-rated reboot would’ve faced strong competition from Black Panther, The Predator has since relocated to August 3rd, 2018.