It’s official: The Predator has been delayed…and not for the first time.
Shane Black’s long-gestating reboot was initially scheduled to arrive on March 2nd, 2018, before 20th Century Fox brought that release date forward by a total of four weeks. The Predator didn’t hang around in February for long, though, as the starry project quickly relocated to August. Now, Exhibitor Relations brings word of a fourth (and presumably final) due date: September 14th, 2018.
That places Black and Fred Dekker’s franchise reboot in the slot once occupied by It, and Exhibitor contends that Fox is “obviously hoping to scare up some of that mad money New Line’s adaptation made last year in what is typically a box office dead zone.”
Disappointing though that may be, The Predator isn’t the only big-name tentpole to be affected by Fox’s reshuffling effort, as Alita: Battle Angel, the long-in-development manga movie from Robert Rodriguez and James Cameron, has relocated to December 21st – a release date it’ll share with both Aquaman and Bumblebee, the first of Paramount’s planned Transformers spinoffs.
A six-month delay is a little disconcerting for a film that has spent so long circling the jaws of production hell, but we’ll reserve any opinion on Alita until it takes flight this December. As for The Predator, it’ll be with us in September, when Olivia Munn, Boyd Holbrook, Trevante Rhodes, Thomas Jane, Augusto Aguilera, Edward James Olmos, Alfie Allen and Yvonne Strahovski will come up against a swarm of hunter aliens in a bustling suburban setting. Think Predator 2, only with more humor.
In light of Fox’s latest reshuffling, The Predator will now loom over theaters on September 14th, before Alita: Battle Angel puts Aquaman‘s box office credentials to the sword on December 21st.
