Two more set reports from Shane Black’s The Predator have surfaced. The first is a length interview with director Shane Black over on Collider. Black talks about collaborating with Fred Dekker to write the script for the film and him wanting to do an “old-school thriller” for The Predator.
So, we just tried to take the existing mythology and take it a step further. Ask some questions about why? Why do Predators do what they do? What would be the next step for them? How do we up the stakes so that there’s not just a single Predator hunting a group of soldiers? Who are the soldiers? How are they different? What’s the heroic quotient and how do you make it not just guys with tough talk and big arms? I mean, I always favor real characters with real actors in these movies. I’m happy to have someone like Jesse Ventura, he’s actually a fine actor as far as that goes. But the actors we tended to get for this are a cut above, I think, the average tough guy.
Shane Black also touches on the budget and says he has a big budget but not as big as say Iron Man 3’s $200M. He goes on to say that effects are going to be half digital and half practical effects, and A.D.I. duo Tom Woodruff and Alec Gillis are behind the Predator costume.
Olivia Munn, left, and Jacob Tremblay star in Twentieth Century Fox’s “The Predator.”
The next set report can be found on Bloody-Disgusting. This one goes through the main characters and tells us a little about them. Particularly, the veterans and how they’re thrown onto a bus where they meet Quinn McKenna. One of the actors says there’ll be connections to all the Predator films as well the Aliens vs Predator universe. Lastly, Bloody-Disgusting have another set report which covers a few new things such as the Predator Dogs and Predator Ship.
6’10” Bryan Prince and 6’9″ Kyle Strauts will be portraying the Predators. Shane Black wanted the Predator designs to adhere to the original but he wanted to modernize it for the film. One of the scenes, they witnessed being filmed was the young boy Rory (Jacob Tremblay) being chased by a Predator Dog. It was much taller than the actor and were similar to Pitbulls with some form of dreadlocks. The Dogs will be all digital creations. They give details on another part of the set showing the inside of the Predator ship where out main character explores.
The massive set represents the inside of the vessel, a looming structure of metal and a complex circuitry of cables and pipes. Interestingly, these additions share a similar design to that of the creature’s iconic dreadlocks. We were also promised that there may be other small easter eggs hidden within the ship’s design. While we stood and marveled at the massive structure looming before us, I noticed several production design boards right outside the set. They depicted an as-yet unbuilt “slide” that looks to usher one of our characters deep into the belly of the ship.
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Full interview with Boyd from the set visits.
https://twitter.com/slashfilm/status/1001206760990896128
Demystifying the monsters by giving them overly human traits, like it happened in some novels, is what takes away the threat, although I'm afraid that ship sailed long ago.
I don't see how witnessing communication between them is humanizing them (which btw I'm a big proponent of keeping them "otherly"), unless you're referring to something else...
Humanise them? Because I agree but they refuse to give the Predator an identity beyond the creature and that's the reason ultimately for said humanisation.
/The bigger badder version of said creature syndrome.
It's really not that hard.
Not saying this wouldn't have happened anyway but if Predator had tried to make it's own identity after Predator 2, or take Predator 2 a little further with a futuristic urban Earth, with its own series identity just beyond the creature itself. Predator would have a world to explore that's not just the creature.
Or riding on the coatails of the Alien universe and making the universe of both of them so much smaller due to that.
IMO do that, then slowly combine it with Alien, (With hints of Blade Runner, not direct connections other than global conglomerates or vehicles.) Then you have a cinematic universe that far and away supersedes that of any other.
So Hybridisation, Predator's speaking and tapping in the Alien technology of the Predator all depends upon execution.
This is what I'm hoping for! Actual conversations between the predators themselves. Even if it's broken and roughly translated, it would be cool to witness communication between them since all we've had so far have been grunts and snarls. (Though who knows, maybe that is language to them.) But knowing what they're actually saying to each other would be kickass.
McKenna: Who are you? What are you?
Upgrade: I...Warrior. You?
M: Same.
U: Warrior. New breed (pointing to Rory).
What a "chat"!
But I think they did not scrap that part. Actually it is the reveal of the film's top "surprise" when it turns out that Rory is the most "advanced" of the human race (I know it can be found out earlier when the Upgrade takes Rory to the ship...but this is the moment when the film clearly tells).
No way this is left out from the final version of the script.
Anyway, they do not say complete, full sentences, only words and with slightly bad grammer.
Very true, like when jungle hunter look at the trap and then look at dutch, or when city hunter realizes he's being fooled by keye's team when changing his vision modes.
I think we’ll be seeing more of those expressions, I can’t wait!
Director Shane Black opened up to CinemaBlend and other outlets and explained that a significant draw to work on the film involved working with an alien creature who had a discernable personality. Black elaborated:
https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2425421/why-shane-black-decided-to-direct-the-predator
You are correct. That would just be beyond excessive...
I think enough has happened in the previous movies and artifacts have been left lying around to assume that the right people know enough about what’s going on. Not a secret, but not something that the general public knows about. I imagine the latter part will probably change after this movie.
Though, to be fair, Anna in Predator was quite familiar with the legend of the "Demon who makes Trophies of Man."
I understood what you meant
I'm hoping for a good twist
Kinda like Deadpool 2 did with the trailer and the movie being so different
I doubt he's directly related to anyone in previous predator lore but perhaps he makes reference to the events of the original based on whispers through the military just like Isabelle.
True, just really curious
Obviously he is Dutch's son...
I thought about this awhile ago, but didn't read that anywhere in the leaked script that I remember
I read through it really fast
If Anna knew about it in Predators, makes sense that others will. I hope nobody winds up being related to Arnold, that would just be too much.
This is from the Collider article Hicks posted:
Holbrook teased a connection to the original film through his character, who is familiar with the Predator lore. “I’ve seen something, and maybe there is a familiarity. I wouldn’t want to say that he’s a UFO conspiracy theorist, but he’s heard of things and seen things, and that may be a reference to the original. So that’s the reference to the original, which we are of keeping in lineage.”
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Exactly
Collider just put out a big summary of everything from their set visit.
JoBlo's rundown of the set visit. Nothing we haven't seen in the others.
Hmm, can't say I'm thrilled about more structured armor with the predator being "less exposed." I've always liked the more minimal, organic, tribal feel. I am intrigued to see it in full, though!
I say wait for the movie and after that you can praise Shane if he deserves.
I defiantly loves these parts of the article
“It does play a little slower, maybe like a Western, which would lend itself to that fear factor.” It also is a promising departure from the original film, which Holbrook says he’s a fan of—and that Shane Black apparently had running on loop for two weeks in the production office of the film before shooting started—but the star repeatedly demurs at comparisons with his Quinn to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Übermensch in the original 1987 picture.
Intriguingly, this extra dimension came intentionally from pushing the cast to via improvise and self-edit. Recalling how the first draft risked being a 150 pages long, Black says he turned to Fred Dekker and said they can’t define seven characters in dialogue; they have to cast them.
When Trish Monaghan shows us the new armor she’s designed for the Predator, for instance, it has a medieval quality to its design, as if it belongs to a ritualized order of knights. One element she is particularly proud of is his new armor his back-flap, evoking feudal Japan.
“It’s a bit Samurai, so it was able to cover, so he wasn’t too exposed,” she says of how it covers some of the musculature in the legs while still showcasing the familiar shape of what Schwarzenegger memorably deemed to be “one ugly motherf++ker.”
Were you able to do any improv on the set?
On this movie, yeah. That’s what’s so great about Shane: he’s an actor’s director and he’s also a writer. So a lot of times writers can be so married to a script, and a lot of times a director looks at the script as a Bible, but then you end up losing a lot of life that comes up that you wouldn’t normally capture on camera. I’ve worked with directors where they shoot this, they shoot this, and then they go back into the editing bay, and they test it for the audience, and they go, “I love that character, that small character, did you get that?” But they didn’t get it, because they weren’t shooting.
So this movie, there’s been so much collaboration and just in the moment, just everyone coming up with stuff and thinking of stuff, and being present, that helps make the movie feel really fun and fresh, and alive.
http://www.denofgeek.com/us/movies/the-predator/273544/the-predator-olivia-munn-finds-god-and-a-good-role-among-aliens
Mostly the same stuff but there was a little bit about the new Predator design -
Also ever since Avengers movie happened and turned Tony Stark into A level superhero. Iron Man is now always in front and center of crossovers and mega-events. He no longer has time to deal with foes in his rogue gallery, where honestly everyone else except Mandarin, sucks.
I never really heard of someone calling themselves Mandarin fan. It surprises me that people are still upset over Mandarin twist. I believe China had something to do with no wanting real Mandarin since even though Mandarin got a modernized revamp origin, his original story was always a racist Fu-Manchu stereotype.
Not very plausible though and this twist made the Mandarin in his final form through Guy Pierce a very generic evil mastermind.