It’s remarkable that the Predator franchise remains as popular as it does when you consider just how many stops, starts, sequels, prequels, reboots, refreshes, reinventions, and crossovers the sci-fi saga has been through since John McTiernan and Arnold Schwarzenegger conspired to deliver an all-time action classic more than 35 years ago.
The drastically underrated Predator 2 is the only direct continuation of the bunch, with 20th Century Fox then spending decades throwing everything at the wall to see what stuck. Paul W.S. Anderson’s Alien vs. Predator was successful-if-underwhelming, but its existence was almost completely ignored by horrendous follow-up Requiem, with the sole exception of the Predalien hybrid.
Nimrod Antal and Robert Rodriguez’s Predators deserved to launch the series it never ended up getting, while Shane Black’s combination of legacy successor and clean slate The Predator was subjected to heavy reshoots, only to flop at the box office despite its status as the highest-grossing entry in the entire back catalogue.
Hulu’s prequel Prey was admittedly phenomenal and exactly the shot in the arm required, but it wouldn’t have existed had 2018’s misfire not torpedoed Predator‘s chance at a fresh start for the fourth time in a row. There were some good ideas, but the ultimately underwhelming outing for the dreadlocked intergalactic bounty hunters marked yet another high-profile failure.
Nonetheless, the undercooked escapade has at least been left to feast on the scraps of the streaming charts, with FlixPatrol naming The Predator as one of Rakuten’s biggest hits this weekend. Hopefully Prey can serve as the springboard to bigger and better things, because there’s only so much rebooting a franchise can take.
