The Predator: Shane Black Shares First Set Photo, Doubles Down On R Rating

Writer-director Shane Black has once again reaffirmed that his upcoming reboot of The Predator will be rated R because “spines bleed…a lot.”

With production gearing up to begin in Los Angeles today, February 20, Black also offered up our first look at his newfound crew of monster hunters. Placing Boyd Holbrook front and center as Special Forces commando Quinn McKenna, up above you’ll be able to lay eyes on X-Men: Apocalypse star Olivia Munn, Trevante Rhodes and Keegan-Michael Key, along with Room breakout Jacob Tremblay, who’s set to play a crucial role in the fight against the Predators – and that’s Predators plural.

Unlike the cult original, The Predator will relocate the sci-fi action to suburbia, where a team of soldiers joins forces with local scientists – led by Munn’s character – to do battle with the extraterrestrials. It’ll herald something “totally new,” according to Holbrook.

As for that all-important R rating, Black took to Twitter to clear up any last-minute confusion regarding the reboot’s classification. Not one to mince words, The Nice Guys director confirmed that, yes, The Predator will secure an R rating at 20th Century Fox, and it’s fair to say that the studio is becoming much more lenient when it comes to adult-oriented tentpoles following the back-to-back success of Deadpool and James Mangold’s Logan.

Here’s the latest update from Shane Black, as relayed by Screen Rant.

And, just to be clear… PG-13 is for pussies. Spines bleed… a lot.

— Shane Black (@BonafideBlack) February 18, 2017

Pitched as a “horror, science-fiction and a western,” The Predator is booked in for release on February 9th, 2018 – just don’t hold your breath for a Schwarzenegger cameo.