Shane Black To Direct A PREDATOR Reboot. No Thank You! UPDATED


In 2010 the Robert Rodriguez produced Predators was released.  This was the third or fifth sequel to the 1987 hit Predator depending on if you count the Alien crossover flicks.  Predators cost about 40 million and grossed roughly 52 million in its theatrical run.  Directed by Nimrod Antal the movie wasn’t bad, but about 5 minutes after I left the theatre I couldn’t remember much from the film at all.  The movie wasn’t the disaster that Alien vs Predator or Alien Vs Predator Requiem were,  but I’d hardly call that a win.

predator-1987-02

Fox in an attempt to prove how utterly bankrupt they are on new concepts is rebooting the series with Shane Black.  Shane Black is the writer of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Lethal Weapon and is set to direct from a treatment  he developed that is set to be finalized by Fred Dekker the writer Director of Robocop 3.  Now I recently tried to re-watch Robocop 3 after reading The Robocop Last Stand series, and could not.

Shane Black’s most recent film was Iron Man 3, a great Shane Black movie and a ho hum Iron Man one.  Shane Black was brought onto the set of the original Predator in case re-writes were needed and didn’t provide any.  Any goodwill I would have for this project was killed when it was announced as a reboot.  No one is asking for a Predator reboot.  The 80’s spawned quite a few cool movie icons, and they’ve been thoroughly milked for the last two decades.  I want to see something new.  If Shane Black wants to make a monster movie great, if he needs the monster to be one we’ve seen in five other movies and a wealth of tie in materials the only thing left to fear to the lack of new ideas in horror/sci-fi projects.

predator

I would be more open to a new Predator film if more than a treatment was completed.  If Black had an amazing concept and fleshed it out to see if it could work as a movie.  That alas is not the case.  He’s got an idea and he’s sending it to Fred Dekker to work on.  The original Predator was just that, original.  Monster movies had seen a large group get picked off one by one before.  But in Predator the group was comprised of incredible bad asses, guys who in any other movie would survive.  The tension also worked because of how little we saw the Predator.  The second film’s biggest shortcoming was overexposure of the creature, and at this point the Predator is far to exposed.

predator 2

UPDATED:  Shane Black has released a statement that his Predator film will be an, “inventive sequel,” not a reboot.  His goal with Dekker will be to “expand(ing) and explore(ing) existing Predator mythology.”