Shane Black Explains Why The Predator’s Had So Many Reshoots

With the impending arrival of The Predator inching ever closer, director Shane Black sat down with Empire Magazine to clear the air regarding the next evolutionary stage for the eponymous beast and addressed those pesky reshoots the film underwent in Vancouver earlier this year.

Initially slated for a March 2nd, 2018 release, before the due date was pulled forward to February 9th, which was then pushed back to August 3rd, and then subsequently moved once again to September 14th – where it can currently be found – according to Black, The Predator was delayed to accommodate a significant rewrite.

“The first time we shot the third act it was daytime. It’s all this spooky stuff, but then it’s bright sunlight. It just didn’t work. So I said ‘Ummm, can we do this again at night?'”

Although in order to make the Predator “frightening” again – after all, this will be the extraterrestrial killing machine’s sixth appearance in a motion picture – Black willfully admitted he had to change more than just the time of day.

“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.”

The “Ultimate Predator,” or so Black has dubbed it, is said to be “bigger, meaner and nasty as hell,” so look for the monster to make an indelible impression next month. At least, that’s according to the man himself.

“Ten feet tall and midnight black, bristling with spines, skin thickened with chitinous organic armour – the product of harvesting DNA from the deadliest creatures on every world it has hunted. The ultimate expression of Predator dominance. It is, it’s fair to say, one giant, ugly motherfucker.”

Regardless of the exhausting wait, we’re still eager for The Predator to open stateside next month, and seeing as Shane Black has promised to deliver all of the “genre sh*t” we’ve come to expect from the franchise, we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

As stated above, The Predator – starring Boyd Holbrook, Olivia Munn, Trevante Rhodes, Keegan-Michael Key, Jacob Tremblay and Sterling K. Brown – is scheduled for a release on the 14th of September, later this year. However, given that the film was just handed an additional set of reshoots, anything can happen, so, let’s just keep our fingers crossed in the hope that the extraterrestrial killing machine will be arriving on time.