Shane Black‘s The Predator is only two years old, but that’s an eternity in Hollywood. And since that film was met with a resounding shrug, Hollywood is simply taking the Predator franchise back to the well and trying again. A new film is in the works with 10 Cloverfield Lane director Dan Trachtenberg at the helm.
Script duties are being handled by Patrick Aison (Jack Ryan). This film unsurprisingly won’t pick up the ending of The Predator, which saw the U.S government developing Predator killer technology to fight back against the super-hunter extraterrestrials.
The Predator franchise began in 1987, with an Arnold Schwarzenegger-led elite crew of U.S. army commandos being hunted down and killed by an invisible monster. The franchise has never been able to recapture the success of that film.
A sequel starring Danny Glover followed in 1990, the Predators battled the Xenomorphs from Alien in two poorly received Alien vs. Predator films in the mid-2000s, and got their own film again in 2010 with Predators before Black’s version two years ago. 20th Century Fox continues to hope for another Predator hit, but maybe that 1987 film was just a perfect specimen unable to be repeated.
Trachtenberg did good work on 10 Cloverfield Lane, so it will be interesting to see what he can do here. He’s unfortunately got into the habit of latching onto other people’s franchises though. and will have to once again live in the shadow of the original film here.
We’ll see what this new version has to offer, but if Shane Black isn’t able to successfully reboot the Predator franchise – although his film was reportedly heavily chopped and changed by the studio – then it’s fair to wonder who can.
#Peace.Love.Predator
