The Predator is an A-tier movie monster trapped in C-tier movies. While the original is an undisputed action masterpiece, Predator 2 is more of a curate’s egg, Predators fails to make an action hero out of Adrian Brody and the less said about the two Alien vs. Predator films the better. All that’s set to change this September, though, when Shane Black’s hotly anticipated The Predator finally hits cinema screens.
While we know that the film apparently takes place in suburbia and is set between Predator 2 and Predators, and that the plot revolves around genetically upgraded variants of the alien hunters, that’s about it in terms of concrete details. Still, a trailer is expected very soon and to whet our appetites for that, we’ve now got a photo of the film’s logo, which seems to take cues from the original.
This comes courtesy of Twitter user @KnightGambit, who snapped it at the Las Vegas CinemaCon, where a 20th Century Fox panel showed some exclusive footage from the upcoming pic. It’s not much, but given that we’ve seen next to nothing from The Predator so far, we’ll take it.
Obviously, both fans and the studio will surely be hoping that Black’s effort reinvigorates the franchise after a couple of misfires – after all, horror and science fiction are very much in vogue right now. That being said, from what we’ve heard from test screenings, viewers haven’t reacted particularly well to Shane Black’s signature comedic style – with the film apparently containing too many jokes.
It sounds like a similar situation to Iron Man 3, where Black took the Marvel template and moulded it to create a distinctively quip-heavy, knockabout caper that some fans despised. Perhaps getting cold feet from these negative audience reactions, Fox called Black and the cast back to reshoot the final third of the movie (resulting in the release date slipping from February to September).
Only time will tell whether this particular bit of studio interference is going to pay off, but it’s perhaps interesting that Fox seem to be mandating quite a few extensive reshoots at the moment, with X-Men: Dark Phoenix and The New Mutants both undergoing significant alterations and seeing delayed release dates, too. Studio executives will no doubt be hoping this all results in a Rogue One style success, and not a Justice League-y catastrophe, and we’ll find out just which one it is on September 14th when The Predator opens wide.
