At this year’s CinemaCon, writer-director Shane Black (Iron Man 3, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) was briefly interviewed by Collider’s Steven Weinraub about the status of The Predator, a big-budget sequel/reboot/something or other in 20th Century Fox’s sci-fi action franchise that he is co-writing with Fred Dekker, the esteemed writer and director of the cult classics Night of the Creeps and The Monster Squad (the latter also sports a co-writing credit from Black).
According to Black, The Predator will be his next film, once again putting his long-in-development Doc Savage feature on the back burner.
Here’s the conversation:
Is it next?
SHANE BLACK: It would seem so.
What does that mean?
BLACK: Well it means that I’m working on the script, and barring an act of God, a safe from the sky, there’s nothing that suggests it won’t be the next thing, and I’m getting more and more excited day by day. I mean, there’s great Predator movies, but to actually play with the idea of making it an event, not necessarily in scale””it doesn’t have to be huge””but it just has to feel like a Predator movie you want to see in the summer and line up for it. And that’s what we’re going for. Let’s get back to the excitement and innovation of that original movie where it felt fresh. I just want to find a way to make it feel fresh and that’s what we’re trying to do.
There has been speculation that original Predator star Arnold Schwarzenegger would return to take on the fierce extraterrestrial hunter-warrior, but Black was quick to admit that talks with the action cinema icon and former governor of California haven’t even begun due to the current state of the script:
We have not talked about it, which is good because I’m not supposed to talk about it anyway. Not supposed to talk about details of the script. And I shouldn’t.
Black was able to confirm the timeframe in which The Predator will take place:
Is it using the real time since the first film?
BLACK: This one will be set in present day.
Ah, so there’s a possibility.
BLACK: Yes, it’s set in present day.
There you have it. The Predator is indeed Shane Black’s next movie and it will take place in the here and now, but the Governator’s involvement is still up in the air. I wouldn’t mind seeing Arnold make a return appearance in a supporting role, but the Austrian Oak doesn’t exactly translate to terminated box office records any more. In any case, having Black and Dekker (tee hee) on screenwriting duties and Black committed to the director’s chair has me anticipating this movie even more than I did for Predators, and I liked that flick.
The Predator is currently scheduled to open in theaters on March 2, 2018. You can catch Black’s next film The Nice Guys, starring Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling, beginning May 20, 2016.
[Source: Collider]
No Comments »
No comments yet.
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL
Leave a comment