I wonder why they didn't make Predator 3 in the 1990's? Predator 2 may not have been a big success but it wasn't a flop. Wikipedia says that the budget was $35 million and it made $57.1 million so I'm suprised that Fox didn't make a sequel at some point during the next 10 years. They only made it after the AvP movies. I think it would have been better than the last two movies if they had made it back then. Sorry if there is a topic like this already. I tried to use the search but I didn't find any.
Considering the first Predator's budget was around $18 million and grossed $98 million three years prior, P2 was considered a disappointment, and everyone's fear of greenlighting a Schwarzenegger-less sequel was pretty much realized. In 1990, Arnold was the biggest box-office star in the world, so at that time I don't think they would have dared greenlight a third film without him.
Did they try to get him back ?
I thought not making at least 2x its budget meant a flop. To be considered a good performance must be like 3x its budget.
Quote from: Samhain13 on Apr 13, 2020, 10:09:13 PM
I thought not making at least 2x its budget meant a flop. To be considered a good performance must be like 3x its budget.
To me, just from my perspective, grossing more than your budget isn't a flop. It's a big disappointment, it lost money theatrically, but it's not a flop. Flops to me are performances like this:
Jason Momoa in "Conan the Barbarian".
Production Budget: $90 million
Worldwide Gross: $48,795,021
Just imo. :)
I always thought the reason they didn't was the Alien franchise in addition to the Terminator franchise still being big. Predator 2 wasn't a flop but it didn't have the results they wanted and they probably put it on the back-burner in favor of bigger properties.
I think making them now probably works to the benefit of the studio and especially the advancements in other areas like games enabling the Predator to be enjoyed outside of film. It transitioned into other areas early on that it's not surprising to find a fan coming out of the comics or novels and even games. It's to say the franchise doesn't need numerous films (though that'd be nice) in order to engage with the audience. So despite Predator 3 happening twenty years later, I don't think the franchise really hurt for it.
Quote from: Kradan on Apr 13, 2020, 09:16:12 PM
Did they try to get him back ?
Man, there was a lot of Predator in the works in the 1990s that couldn't lure Arnold Schwarzenegger by my recollection. There was one Predator 3 script being developed a few years after Predator 2. It might have been Sam Park's. Rodriguez did a Predator 3 script in the 90's with Dutch returning. Was Predator: The Zoo in the 90s too? That had Dutch AND Harrigan I recall. I think Rolland Emmerich was working on an Alien Vs Predator in the early 1990's featuring Dutch. Heck, I remember James Cameron toying with an idea of having Arnold in an Alien movie then too. Lotsa stuff! :)
Where you did see Arnie being attached to Emmerich's AvP?
Quote from: Voodoo Magic on Apr 14, 2020, 02:11:57 AM
Quote from: Kradan on Apr 13, 2020, 09:16:12 PM
Did they try to get him back ?
Man, there was a lot of Predator in the works in the 1990s that couldn't lure Arnold Schwarzenegger by my recollection. There was one Predator 3 script being developed a few years after Predator 2. It might have been Sam Park's. Rodriguez did a Predator 3 script in the 90's with Dutch returning. Was Predator: The Zoo in the 90s too? That had Dutch AND Harrigan I recall. I think Rolland Emmerich was working on an Alien Vs Predator in the early 1990's featuring Dutch. Heck, I remember James Cameron toying with an idea of having Arnold in an Alien movie then too. Lotsa stuff! :)
I didn't know about those. Predator movie with both Dutch and Harrigan would have been awesome. Maybe it could still happen.
Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Apr 14, 2020, 07:51:22 AM
Where you did see Arnie being attached to Emmerich's AvP?
Wasn't it based on the Capcom game?
Not that I remember.
QuoteIn late 1992 it was reported in the ALIENS magazine that Roland Emmerich was attached to direct Alien vs. Predator. Whilst no writer was named in the brief article, it was stated to have been "loosely based" on the original Dark Horse series, was set on a "jungle planet" and that Largo Entertainment was involved with a budget of around 30 million dollars.
Whilst that makes it seem quite likely it would have been Peter Briggs' script, Emmerich (and his usual partner Dean Devlin) had in fact wanted to throw out Briggs' work and start from scratch. In an interview published in another magazine they spoke about how the Alien in their film would have been a PredAlien (or PrAlien as they call it). No treatment or script was ever completed for their version though.
https://www.avpgalaxy.net/avp-movies/avp-movie/hunt-begins-early-days-peter-briggs-alien-vs-predator/
If someone has an extra tidbit, I'll be happy to add to it!
Yeah I'm remembering what SiL is remembering. If I recall correctly there was some small writeup in a game magazine that the AvP Capcom game was based on an original AvP film script that was in development that featured Dutch but was ultimately discarded, and I don't think Peter Briggs wrote it. I'll try to research it later if I have some free time.
Edit:
Here's from Alien Vs Predator Wikipedia:
"The game was based on an early draft of a script for a film adaptation of the Alien vs. Predator comic book series and was intended to have been a tie-in to the movie. Although the draft was later rejected in favor of a different script, Capcom had already completed the game intending for the film to be released around the time of the game's completion. The Alien vs. Predator film was not released until 2004 and was based on a very different story, and so the arcade game was released in 1994 as a stand-alone storyline to the series."
Now I think this info came from a game magazine, maybe an interview with a developer? My recollection is it was Devlin & Emmerich discarded work but I don't know, my mind might be filling in blanks here. It was very limited info and has been a long time and other than a 'oh, that's interesting' I never personally delved into it. Maybe someone else has? As with any pre-internet-age topic think it's going to take some real digging.
That's the quote I'm remembering.
Came from here - https://www.destructoid.com/a-brief-and-bloody-history-of-aliens-videogames-117257.phtml
QuoteHowever, Capcom took home the nostalgia trophy, with its 1994 arcade classic still fondly remembered by many today. Aliens vs. Predator for the arcade featured three-player co-op and the four characters were made up of two marines and two predators, uniting against the Xenomorph threat. The game was actually based off of an early draft film script and its release had been intended to coincide with an Aliens vs. Predator movie, even when an entirely new script had been written. However, no Aliens vs. Predator film was to surface for another decade, so the game eventually released as a standalone crossover in 1994. Many would argue it was better than the film that eventually came out.
(https://media1.tenor.com/images/67f066960697904a1af6a9e667fece5d/tenor.gif)
Easy there, cowboy! :laugh: I messaged the Destructoid writer to pin down the source.
Quote from: Galactus123 on Apr 13, 2020, 02:45:34 PM
I wonder why they didn't make Predator 3 in the 1990's? Predator 2 may not have been a big success but it wasn't a flop. Wikipedia says that the budget was $35 million and it made $57.1 million so I'm suprised that Fox didn't make a sequel at some point during the next 10 years. They only made it after the AvP movies. I think it would have been better than the last two movies if they had made it back then. Sorry if there is a topic like this already. I tried to use the search but I didn't find any.
You generally have to add something like three times the production budget to also account for the marketing budget (plus, the studio only really makes money from tickets in the first couple of weeks, after which most of the ticket sale goes to the theatre owner). Even if '
Predator 2' somehow got a small margin of profit, it wouldn't have been enough to push it into the 'hit' status which yet another sequel would have required.
At the time, that and '
Alien 3' were both considered major failures and I remember both getting mostly negative reviews in print media. So, it's not like people were crying out with demand for more of either.
Quote from: Kradan on Apr 13, 2020, 09:16:12 PM
Did they try to get him back ?
They did but Schwarzenegger was a huge star by then and they couldn't budget for the salary he was demanding.
Quote from: irn on Apr 21, 2020, 02:29:02 PM
Quote from: Kradan on Apr 13, 2020, 09:16:12 PM
Did they try to get him back ?
They did but Schwarzenegger was a huge star by then and they couldn't budget for the salary he was demanding.
And I can only imagine that he would have wanted a significant amount of screen time to go along with that hefty salary.