Having witnessed the original Predator wreak havoc back in ’88, Shane Black knows a thing or two about cinema’s ugliest motherfucker.
Which is why we’re cautiously optimistic that his star-studded reboot, simply titled The Predator, will be able to deliver the goods this September. Featuring a who’s who of A-list talent, this is a franchise revival that hopes to make amends for Nimród Antal’s ill-fated reboot from 2010, and it seems Black and co-writer Fred Dekker have but one goal: make the Predator great again.
Such a back-to-basics approach has resulted in a film that’s oozing with sci-fi horror, as Shane Black tells Empire Magazine (h/t CBM). As a matter of fact, the director aims to crank up the scare factor quite considerably, and he’s even shared two never-before-seen pics from The Predator to prove it.
The challenge became to make it frightening. ‘Cause upon that hinged everything — whether you bought our heroes going up against him and felt a real threat for them. We had to invent a scenario in which the Predators were mysterious and scary again.
Introducing a more refined version of the famous Predator armor comes at a good time, too, what with Shane Black’s gory reboot expected to unleash a super-sized monster known only as the Ultimate Predator. Its brute strength and ginormous frame dwarf that of its genetic cousins, and we imagine September’s thriller will feature a moment when the aliens and their sworn enemies are forced to team up in the face of a common threat.
Either way, The Predator rips and tears its way into theaters this September, and when it does, Shane Black’s squadron will be going up against a beast the likes of which we’ve never seen before. The hunt, as they say, has evolved…
