“You could say I’ve been working on this project for almost 15 years,” says Robert Rodriguez of Predators, the Austin-shot, hard-R rebooting of the sci-fi/action franchise that began in 1987 with John McTiernan’s surprise smash, Predator. In 1996, Rodriguez was hired to write the script for a third Predator film (following up 1990’s Predator 2) and immediately relocated the interstellar, mandibular hunter to a planetary game preserve where a group of human prisoners would be unfair game for alien sport.
“Basically, the idea came from [Richard Connell’s] ‘The Most Dangerous Game,'” admits Rodriguez. “At the time, Arnold [Schwarzenegger] was going to return as the character Dutch, but obviously that ended up not happening, [and] I moved on to other projects. But I’ve always wanted to return to the Predator in some way, just because it’s such a classic character. And then last year Fox called and said they’d found the script and they wanted to do it. Finally.”
Rodriguez (who co-produced, with Elizabeth Avellán and John Davis) debuted a handful of clips from the Troublemaker Studios/20th Century Fox film to a packed house of the long-suffering Predator-faithful during South by Southwest 2010 and promised, along with director Nimród Antal and Greg Nicotero of KNB EFX Group, that the finished film would be CGI-minimal, instead focusing on KNB’s animatronic and suited-stunt actors.
“There will be various kinds of Predators, too,” Rodriguez adds, “so it’s not just the one lone hunter. This time there’ll be a real mix of individual Predator characters. And the original Predator [from McTiernan’s movie] will be in there as well. Nobody’s seen that character since the original movie, but we’re bringing him back.”
The Austin Film Society will present the world premiere of Predators at the Paramount Theatre on July 7. For tickets and more info, see our Special Screenings section or visit austinfilm.org. Predators opens in theatres July 9.
This article appears in July 2 • 2010.