“What the hell are you?”
It’s a familiar question thrown around in the universe of The Predator. From the first time Big Bad Dutch (Arnold Schwarzenegger) glimpsed the de-cloaked and de-masked alien hunter, it’s endured as a horror and sci-fi icon. Regardless of starring in some truly questionable films since the 1987 original, any news regarding the ugly motherfucker gets fans excited enough to challenge the most sophisticated thermal imagery, and it’s easy to see why.
Shane Black’s upcoming entry into the franchise, which hopes to revitalize it, sees the return of Predator’s best friend, the Predator Dogs. Known as Hell-Hounds, their last outing was in the Robert Rodriguez-produced Predators, where they were used, perhaps unsurprisingly, to scout ahead and hunt prey. As well as fetch slippers off-screen, of course.
In addition to sharing the Predator’s blood-lust, visual effects supervisor Jonathan Rothbart told Collider in a recent interview that the hounds will share some of their features:
“We were trying to stay away from matching any previous design on them. So we try to keep it where at least we have some familiar aspects to the dogs that you can bring back to the Predators. Such as, they have some level of dreads to them. And their mouths are not the same as a Predator mouth, but they do have that kind of distended jaw a little bit. It doesn’t open sideways like that, but it still has some similarities, just to keep it in the same realm. The skin tones have some similarities as well.”
Black’s installment also hints at further alien species’ involvement in the Predator’s evolution, which will no doubt at least include the Xenomorph from the Alien franchise and resulting crossover movies (not that we talk about those).
Initially scheduled for a premiere this past February, which was then pushed to August, The Predator is currently slated for a September 14th release stateside later this year and will feature Boyd Holbrook, Olivia Munn, Trevante Rhodes, Keegan-Michael Key, Jacob Tremblay and Sterling K. Brown.
