The Predator franchise has never managed to recapture the magic of John McTiernan’s classic 1987 original, which is hardly surprising when it still ranks as one of the greatest action movies ever made, boasting plenty of iconic one-liners and set pieces along with what might be the most testosterone-drenched cast ever assembled.
Ever since then, the series has struggled to retain any sort of consistency, with the last outing for the dreadlocked extra-terrestrial squandering the potential of having Lethal Weapon creator and Iron Man 3 director Shane Black spearheading an R-rated sequel, as The Predator bombed at the box office despite becoming the highest-grossing installment ever after it wound up earning $160 million on a franchise-high $88 million budget.
Perhaps the most underrated entry is Nimrod Antal’s Predators, which looked to return to the roots of the original by heading back into the jungle while also embracing the sci-fi elements by setting the action on a distant planet. It was a minor commercial success in 2010 after earning over three times the $40 million budget back in theaters, and scored the best critical reception since Arnold Schwarzenegger urged his teammates to get to the choppah in the process.
Fans would have loved to have seen a sequel, but Fox decided to head down the reboot route instead, and in a recent interview, co-writer Alex Litvak revealed the awesome ideas he was hoping to include in the follow-up.
“At the end of Act One, Royce, Isabelle and their guys are captured by Super Predators on purpose, because they allow themselves to be captured, and are brought to their ship that they use to funnel people to this planet. There’s got to be some sort of big transport. So now you get to see this transport. So our guys break out, and what the movie is, is Die Hard on a Predator ship. The idea was now you break free, and now you’re trying to take control of the ship with all of the Super Predators you have to fight there. And of course all the other sh*t that’s there, like the alien zoo on that ship. At the end of the day we win, we get back to Earth, we land, and we realize it’s the future. All along we thought this was happening now, but what if these guys have been on ice for 300 years? The hatch opens, and the Colonial Marines come in.”
A cross between Die Hard and Alien happening as part of the Predator universe sounds phenomenal, and would have marked some nice brand synergy for the studio, but sadly, the entire franchise looks to be dead in the water after the last movie flopped and Disney acquired the rights as part of their 20th Century Fox takeover.